Fic : Blacklist House 23
Fic :The House You Live
Chapter 23 : I Want to Hear It From You
A/N To my unhappy guest - I'm glad that the Liz in this story seems like an ass because that is exactly how I intended to write her. As for that being out of character, you and I will just have to agree to disagree.
I Want to Hear It From You
Liz interrupted him. “- I will let you stay in my life. I will keep helping you with the FBI - but only on this one condition. You don't look for Agnes anymore ...”
“- Lizzie no -”
“... Or my grandmother.”
Reddington froze.
Recovering, he told her. “Mr. Kaplan isn't your grandmother.”
Liz countered. “The DNA doesn't lie.”
“No, but it doesn't tell the whole story either. Mr. Kaplan isn't your grandmother. Mr. Kaplan gave your mother away.”
Liz was momentarily shocked and lost, but then she put it together. “To Annie. Mr. Kaplan gave my mother to Annie.”
Reddington hesitated but unable to find a way out, he finally nodded.
“And then what?” Liz demanded. “Mr. Kaplan gave my mother to Annie and then she walked away?”
“No.” Reddington made the two letter word into a long sigh. “Kate could never have walked away from Annie.”
“So Mr. Kaplan gave my mother to Annie and … “ Liz realized that her mother and Mr. Kaplan sharing the same name was no coincidence. “ … Annie named my mother after Mr. Kaplan.”
That at least Reddington was willing to concede without a fight.
Liz was so far beyond merely frustrated. She glared at him. “You lied to me!”
Reddington responded immediately and vehemently. “I have never lied to you.”
Liz thought back to the cemetery. She thought about the woman in Mr. Kaplan's grave - the one with the hair so blonde that Liz had mistaken it for white. She remembered feeling sick to her stomach watching as Reddington had checked the woman's torso for Mr. Kaplan's Caesarian scar while describing how Mr. Kaplan's baby had been taken from her - how her mother had been stolen from Mr. Kaplan.
Only it wasn't true.
“That whole story about Mr. Kaplan being in the hospital and her baby being ripped out of her, you made it all up.”
Reddington shook his head. “I didn't make it up. That doctor cut your mother right out of Kate to give to those people. Brimley and Annie's brother, they did take a couple of baseball bats to those two men.”
Liz was losing patience with him. “But they got Mr. Kaplan's baby back from the couple.”
Reddington scoffed. “Dom and Teddy had nothing to do with getting your mother back.”
As he continued, Liz was startled by just how absolutely outraged he sounded not about Mr. Kaplan's baby being stolen but about events that had preceded that. “Annie didn't lend Kate out to get pawed at time and again and then wait eight months for some other woman to get her prize from the bottom of the Cracker Jack box!”
Liz was aware that at the time there weren't the more clinical methods of intervention that there were now - just the old fashioned delivery method. Still, her eyes swam with tears at the imagery so less flowery than his previous story of how her mother came into existence.
“Annie stole Katarina back before that other woman even set eyes on your mother. Those two men, they were an afterthought. That wasn't about getting your mother back. That was the principle of the matter after what they did to Kate.”
Liz blinked back her tears to continue confronting Reddington. “I asked you if Mr. Kaplan ever got her baby back. You lied to me.”
“I didn't lie to you. I didn't answer. I told you I didn't know how to answer.”
Liz was infuriated. “It wasn't a trick question!”
“I didn't know how to answer because I don't know that Katarina would ever have agreed that Kate got her back. Kate isn't your grandmother because she was never Katarina's mother.”
Reddington wasn't making sense.
“Mr. Kaplan stayed. You say she gave my mother to Annie to raise, but Mr. Kaplan stayed. They raised her together. How would that not make her my grandmother?”
“Annie was Katarina's mother. Annie was your grandmother. Not Kate.”
They were talking fifty years ago. Given the different period they lived in, Liz realized maybe they both couldn't have claimed to be her mother's mother, but ...
Liz shrugged. “They were both there. So they are both my grandmother.”
“No.” Reddington insisted. “Kate's not. Annie was.”
“Why can't they both be my grandmother?”
“Because that's not the way it was. Because Mr. Kaplan doesn't see it that way. I told you, Kate gave your mother to Annie.”
“I don't understand.”
Reddington shook his head. “I can't make you understand.”
“Try.” Liz insisted giving him an ultimatum. “Or I walk out that door.”
“I can't make you understand it because I don't understand it. Your mother didn't understand it. There's just this disconnect in Kate's mind. There always was. It drove Katarina mad. Kate always looked after me, looked after you because we were Annie's.”
Frustrated by his obstinacy, Liz found something else to fault him for. “Why did you tell me that my mother told you that she thought that Annie killed Mr. Kaplan's son?”
“Because you refused to drop it and that is what Katarina told me.”
“No.” Liz shook her head. “I can't believe that Mr. Kaplan would have given Annie another baby if she thought that Annie had done anything to harm the first one.”
Reddington expression's was downcast as he started. “When I first came into Kate and Annie's lives, Kate and I didn't have the best of relationships. Kate didn't … trust me - rightfully so.”
Reddington looked regretful, ashamed even as he admitted. “I did anything and everything I could to come between them, to cause trouble for Kate.
“For the longest time, Kate hid your mother's existence from me.
“It was easy enough to do. Katarina was in school in Russia - or at least that's what she told everyone she was doing - and if anyone slipped up and mentioned her it was easy enough to explain away because Kate and Katarina had the same name.
“One of the last times I saw Kate before I finally met your mother, I was being cruel. I made a comment, a barb - about it being a good thing that lesbians couldn't have children because I couldn't fathom what a child of the two of them would be like - the child of a narcissist and a sociopath.
“Katarina was ...” The way he said the word, the expression on his face, it was like just the memory of her took his breath away. “ … astonishing, but it was hard sometimes to tell if what Katarina was telling me was the truth or if she was telling me what she thought I wanted to hear because she knew that I was still so angry with Kate and Annie - but I never doubted that she hated that baby.”
Liz frowned confused. “You said he was only a few months old when he died and my mother came after. She never would have met him.”
“Katarina didn't need to meet him to hate him. She blamed him.”
Liz wasn't following. “Blamed him? For what?”
“For Kate giving her away.”
“But she didn't give her away.” Liz argued.
“Yes! She did.” Reddington insisted. “Kate abdicated any and all rights she ever had to your mother.”
“That's not fair. That's -”
A frustrated Reddington interrupted her. “- You hear me, but you're not listening to me! You never saw the way your mother would twinge every time Kate would say the words.”
“What -” Liz started to ask what words, but Reddington spared her.
“'Don't take your mother's car, take mine. Your mother was looking for you. Your mother just went upstairs.'”
Liz stared at him not sure of what to say.
“You didn't see the look on your mother's face at the hospital after you were born when Annie was holding you and Katarina asked Kate if she wanted to hold you.”
Reddington's brow creased in disbelief. “Kate said no. She said you looked content where you were.”
Startled by the implication, Liz questioned him. “You were there? At the hospital where I was born? I thought I was born in Russia?”
Still looking bewildered at Mr. Kaplan's answer even after all these years, Reddington didn't seem to hear her question.
“Kate was perfectly happy to just watch some other woman hold her grandchild.”
Reddington closed his eyes. His expression looked pained as he said it again - this time without the scorn. “Kate was perfectly happy.”
Reopening his eyes, he looked at her as he told her. “At the hospital, I took you ...”
Liz stared at him apprehensively waiting for him to go on.
“... I took you from Annie's arms. I held you before Kate did because she was never going to take you away from Annie. I put you in Kate's arms.”
Given Kirk's words about Reddington stealing her from her parents, that wasn't where she thought he was going to go with that.
Liz was … disappointed.
But then Kirk with his accusations of an affair - complete with what she realized now surely had to have been a faked diary - though faked by Kirk or faked by her mother, Liz didn't know - had been wrong about many things about her mother's relationship with Reddington - hadn't he?
Liz stopped trying to argue the point that Mr. Kaplan was her grandmother for a moment and paused to really consider what Reddington kept insisting.
When Reddington had told her that he didn't believe her mother when she said that Mr. Kaplan's girlfriend had killed Mr. Kaplan's son - that children often made up stories to explain things they didn't understand …
Liz had made up a story of her own.
Since Reddington, who always knew everything, didn't know how Mr. Kaplan's son had died Liz assumed that there wasn't a cause to know. Three to six months was an age that was prime for SIDS. Liz had filled in the blanks and jumped to the assumption that her mother, a young child, was trying to make sense of how another child could die with no explainable cause … but maybe that had been the wrong assumption to jump to.
“My mother wasn't trying to explain how another child could just die with no reason. She was trying to explain why her own mother had given her away.”
Reddington nodded. He looked pained as he spoke. “Katarina told me she thought Annie got rid of him because Kate paid too much attention to him. He was starting to like Kate more than he liked Annie. She thought that that was why Kate always kept her at arm's length - to protect her.”
Liz pointed out the obvious. “But she wasn't there to know any of that.”
“No. She wasn't.” Reddington agreed.
She asked. “Do you really think that my mother believed that Annie did that?”
“What you have to understand was that Katarina was like quicksilver. She would tell me one thing and then the very next time I saw her she would tell me something different. Something that directly contradicted the thing she said before. She would tell me things that were demonstrably false.”
“Like what?” Liz half asked, half demanded.
“One week it was that Kate had grown fed up with Annie years ago. She wanted to leave, she would have, but Annie was too dependent on her. She felt responsible for her.
“The next week it was that Annie didn't want to be with Kate anymore. The only reason she had stayed with Kate all those years was because to leave would be to admit that she made a mistake all those years ago in picking Kate over -”
Reddington looked away without finishing.
Liz had gone over every bit of the file Aram had amassed. She had read every word of the court transcripts. Liz wondered if he didn't know all the circumstances, if he didn't understand that his mother hadn't had a choice in letting him go, or if to him it just didn't matter.
Reddington took a shaky breath before restarting.
“None of it was true. I have never known two people more in love. Katarina knew that a part of me wanted, needed them to be unhappy and she tried to play on that.
“Katarina would tell the most outrageous lies, but she would usually make sure to include at least a grain of truth to keep me coming back for more.”
“What was the grain of truth?” Liz asked.
Reddington's expression turned slightly sour. “She showed me where Annie hid her scrap books so Kate wouldn't find them. If they gave out awards for stalking Annie would have taken top prize. She didn't just have my high school and college graduation announcements, she had clippings from my little league days and even from the time I took second place in a pie eating contest on Nantucket when I was twelve.
“She must have subscribed to every newspaper in every city I ever lived in. She even had the engagement and wedding announcements that ran in Carla's parents' hometown newspaper.”
Liz stated the obvious. “Your mother loved you.”
“No. Marvin loved his son. When you love your son, you don't just clip out newspaper articles about him. When you leave, you take him with you.”
Liz knew better than to try to point out how well that advice had turned out for Marvin or his son.
Rather than wade into that quagmire, Liz demanded more information about her mother. “What else did she do? What other things did my mother tell you?”
Reddington seemed to cast about for a minute before settling on another memory. “Your mother was newly married to Constantine when I finally met her. She had been living in Russia. They didn't tell her when Kate got sick. Kate didn't want to disrupt her studies. She wanted to let her finish before telling her. She told me she only found out when Kate showed up the week before the wedding looking like -”
Reddington broke off shaking his head.
“But when it was about Annie, Kate had her on the very first plane back here.”
His expression had turned sour as he pointed out the inconsistency.
“Kate was through with having the chemo and radiation. It didn't matter anymore. Either the last round worked and the cancer was gone or her body wasn't going to be able to take another round. She was too weak. She couldn't take care of Annie on her own.”
Liz waited for him to specify what was wrong with Annie, but he didn't.
“Your grandfather offered to step in to help, but Katarina didn't trust any of them to keep her informed. She sent Constantine back to Russia to tend to his budding business empire, but she decided to stay, to move back home for a time to help out and keep an eye on them.
“A month or so into her stay, Katarina called me. Kate had taken Annie to a late afternoon doctor appointment. The four of us were suppose to have dinner at the house that night. Katarina told me to come over early to help her make dinner. I knew what that really meant - I would cook dinner while Katarina at best sat on the counter watching or at worst ate the ingredients as I chopped them. Instead, she just disappeared upstairs. She came back with a towel on her head.
“Katarina's hair was the same color as Annie's. Not just red, but the exact same shade.
“She told me a story about when she was a little girl. About when they first came back to D.C. Annie didn't want anyone to ever question the idea that Katarina was her daughter so the night before Katarina was going to start preschool Annie dyed her hair to match Annie's … and Kate just let her.
“She took the towel off and the red was gone.”
Liz remembered the struck look on Reddington's face when she had dyed her hair blonde while they were together on the run. “It was blonde, wasn't it? My mother was a blonde.”
“No.” Shaking his head, Reddington denied it. “She wasn't a blonde. She was a redhead. She changed her hair color just to tell me that made up story.”
Liz just stared at him unsure of what to think or say.
“The first time I saw her, I couldn't stop staring at her. I couldn't get over how much she looked just like Annie. But … she looked nothing like Annie without her red hair. Without the red hair, she didn't look like Kate or Annie. She just looked like her own person.”
Reddington frowned. “I would usually take out the kitchen trash as I was leaving after dinner. I would put it in the outside bins on my way to my car. That night I was distracted. I forgot, but Katarina didn't. As I was leaving she chided me about it. I went to grab it. The box for the blonde hair color was just sitting at the top of the trash for me to see. She didn't even try to hide it.”
Liz didn't find that to be the smoking gun that Reddington did. “Just because she dyed her hair back to blonde doesn't mean she wasn't a blonde. It takes time for colored hair to fade on its own.”
Besides, what were the chances that her mother would naturally have the same uncommon hair color as a woman she wasn't biologically related to?
Unless …
Knowing Mr. Kaplan's meticulousness for details, Liz didn't dismiss the possibility that she had deliberately sought out a man that shared features with the woman she really wanted to be having the child of. In fact, as soon as the idea occurred to her, Liz was convinced of it.
“Katarina wasn't a blonde. She was a redhead. Your grandfather had a picture of your mother as a baby on his desk.”
Liz interrupted. “He wasn't just something you made up? I really had a grandfather? My mother really had a father? He wasn't just one in a succession of creeps picked up in a bar for a one night stand for Mr. Kaplan to try to get pregnant?”
A desperate Liz held her breath after asking.
Reddington shook his head. “He wasn't just a creep. I told you, he loved your grandmother very much. He knew she wanted a baby and he wanted her to be happy.”
Liz couldn't explain why it mattered, but it mattered.
Liz wanted to believe him, but she knew that Reddington told stories. She admitted aloud. “I don't believe you.”
Reddington reached two fingers into the little pocket of his vest. They came out with a jumble of jewelery - a gold chain with a heart shaped locket and a wedding band.
Liz recognized the ring from the cabin. “That's Mr. Kaplan's ring.”
“No, it isn't.”
Liz started to get testy. “I saw you pick it up at the cabin.”
“It's not Kate's. It's Annie's. Kate bought it for her. Annie was too self centered to actually think to give Kate one in return.”
Liz wasn't there to play semantics. “It's the ring that Mr. Kaplan always wore.”
Liz didn't think that Reddington of all people should have it. She went to reach for it, but Reddington tucked it back into his vest pocket.
He tried to distract her with the other piece of jewelry before she could object.
“Your grandfather gave this to your mother when she was a little girl.”
His attempt to distract her worked.
Liz stared at the locket. It looked like it had seen better days.
“That belonged to my mother?”
Liz didn't understand why Reddington would have a necklace given to her mother as a child.
Reddington nodded and turned the locket so that she could read the inscription.
As Liz reached a hand forward to take it, a flash of panic crossed Reddington's face. For a moment, Liz thought he wasn’t going to let her have that either.
But then he did.
Liz ran her finger along the inscription that was still legible if you knew the language. Liz only recognized her mother's name.
Reddington translated the rest for her.
“To Katarina Love Papa.”
Liz didn't ask why Reddington was carrying around her mother's childhood necklace like a talisman. Blinking back tears, she just clutched it tightly.
Reddington continued with his story.
“In the picture on your grandfather's desk, Katarina was only a few months old, but she already had a full head of the most unruly hair. Red hair. A baby's hair is too delicate. Not even Annie would have tried to use dye on it.”
Still holding the locket, Liz asked. “Why would my mother dye it blonde? Why not dye it a darker color to look like Mr. Kaplan's?”
Reddington shook his head. He didn't have an answer for her. “Katarina was a wild card. There wasn't always a rhyme or reason to the things she did.”
Liz turned it over in her mind. Reddington had once told her that he was sure that he had met Mr. Kaplan as a child, but that he couldn't for the life of him remember her ...
Liz thought of someone else's hair that would have been too delicate to use hair dye on.
“You said Mr. Kaplan couldn't pull off the bald look. What color was her hair when it started to grow back in?”
“Kate wore a wig once her hair started to fall out. I only saw her once without it. She was only a few weeks out from her last chemotherapy and radiation treatments so there wasn't very much. It looked like the fuzz on a peach.
“Before it fell out, her hair had been brown with just a touch of white at the temples. Her new hair came in all white. She was closer to forty than fifty, but it came in all white.”
Liz put the chances that Mr. Kaplan's hair had regrown in all white when she was only in her forties at about the same chance that her hair had naturally been all brown with sometimes and sometimes not just a touch of white while in her seventies.
Liz had a theory on why her mother would have dyed her hair blonde and why Reddington couldn't remember a young Mr. Kaplan, but she didn't say anything. She was here to get answers not give them.
Besides, he was already moving on.
“Katarina was just toying with me. Eventually, I caught on to that. I came to realize that your mother didn't like me, didn't want me there. She was toying with me, but she was the only one who knew things and would talk to me about them so I had no choice but to play her games. To take what I could get from her.”
Liz didn't bother to point out the irony of him complaining about that to her.
“What do you mean she didn't want you there?”
“Katarina had been raised by a narcissist to be a narcissist. She may have known she wasn't an only child, but she was accustomed to being treated like one. It was enough to grow up with the specter of us. She didn't want to have one of us actually there. She wasn't interested in sharing Annie's - and certainly not any of Kate's - time and attention or affection.”
Reddington chewed at his lip. “I think at first, she only had anything to do with me beyond what she absolutely had to considering the situation because her handler thought that I might have useful information.”
Liz had picked up on Reddington's earlier comment about her mother 'telling' everyone that she was in school. “She was already a spy.”
Reddington nodded.
“Eventually as we continued interacting with each other, as our relationship continued, her interest and affection for me became real … I think.”
Liz pointed out. “You still haven't answered my question. Do you really think that my mother believed that Annie killed Mr. Kaplan's baby?”
“Kate and Annie, they both grew up on farms, but they were such very different people. Kate is reserved. She's cautious and methodical. Annie was rash. For as long as I've known her, Kate has always been slightly aloof, guarded. She was never a very tactile person. Annie wasn't like that at all.
“If you said you thought you had a fever and you asked if you felt warm, Annie would kiss you on the forehead to check. Kate would hand you a thermometer. They were just very different people.
“I think Katarina just read too much into that.”
Liz wanted to be sure. She needed to be absolutely certain. “You didn't believe her.”
“I think that Katarina wanted to believe. To have a reason why Kate was the way that she was.”
“But you don't think Annie hurt Mr. Kaplan's son.”
“No.” Reddington said it calmly but definitively. “I believe that there was a baby and that he died, but ...” He shook his head in disbelief. “If … if it was Annie's fault I know it couldn't have been deliberate.”
Deliberate.
The distinction didn't escape Liz as Reddington went on.
“Annie was flighty. She was impulsive and irresponsible. She could be volatile - every time I see Brimley dragging around that damn oxygen tank I am reminded of that - but never towards a child.”
Liz thought of the memories - wondrous to him - that Reddington had shared with her of his mother. One hundred and one cookies and spending the entire day from opening to close at an art museum did seem harmless, but a beautiful woman alone with a young child wandering miles of shore and taking rides from strangers? Being taken out of bed in the middle of the night to go stargazing? Of laying on the sand. Or the grass. Or the snow.
Liz couldn't help but think of the things that could have gone wrong.
Liz could perhaps understand Reddington's father's frustration and concern about the inadvertent dangers his wife might have been exposing their son to. While she didn't agree with what he had done after, Liz could understand why he had felt the need to hire a nanny to supervise his son and his wife.
According to the records Aram had uncovered, Mr. Kaplan's attempts to finish her training to become a doctor had been derailed more than once. She was already using a fake name, but it had been consistently the same fake name allowing her to retain some of her progress from program to program and allowing Aram to trace her as she had stopped and started and restarted her training numerous times before finally going off the grid entirely.
Liz wanted to know why Mr. Kaplan had given up on having a respectable life and turned to one of crime.
Reddington had offered up a few different explanations as to why Mr. Kaplan might have abandoned the idea of being a doctor but none had been terribly convincing.
Liz wondered if this was the answer.
Had Mr. Kaplan, like Reddington's father before her, come to the conclusion that Annie needed more supervision than she could provide while working such long hours?
Knowing that Reddington didn't have anything useful to offer on that topic and having gotten the idea that Mr. Kaplan and Annie hadn't volunteered the information to her mother, Liz changed the subject by asking a question. “How did my mother figure out that Mr. Kaplan was her mother, not Annie?”
“Your mother was a clever little girl and your grandfather -” Reddington shook his head. “- let's just say he's where your mother and you both got your tempers.”
Liz kept quiet and just listened.
“Katarina's father wasn't allowed to tell her who he really was. He was always a part of her life, just not as her father. That was the arrangement everyone had agreed to. It worked for a while because your grandfather was the only real father figure in your mother's life, but then … Kate's brother came to town.
“Katarina tricked your grandfather into admitting that he was her father.”
Liz picked at what he was saying.
“Tricked him how? What was she told about her father? Mr. Kaplan and Annie must have told her something.”
“Annie was as cliché as they come. She told Katarina that her father had died in the war. What war that was suppose to be, I don't even know.”
Not for the first time, Liz noticed that Reddington seemed to put the blame on Annie for just about everything Mr. Kaplan and Annie did.
“Katarina set him up perfectly. According to Katarina, she waited until everyone was at the house together having dinner. She pulled out a paper from her school bag about an event at her school - a father daughter dance. Katarina announced that her teacher had said that since she didn't have a daddy she could pick someone else - a grandfather or an uncle, a neighbor or a family friend to bring.”
That was a familiar old wound for Liz. She couldn't help but interrupt. “I always hated it when I was in school and they would do a mother daughter event. Or ask us to make our family tree. The first time they had all the mothers come in to help with a project in my class, Sam offered to put on a dress and go.”
Liz smiled at the memory. “Instead, we ended up playing hooky. We went to Aunt June's Diner. We had pie for breakfast. That became our tradition every time my school had a mother daughter event.”
“Sam went to all your parent teacher conferences and all your school plays. He did all the bake sales and the last minute school projects. He was the one sitting up with you when you were sick or had a bad dream. Sam was the one that was always there.
“I keep telling you, you don't need to ever wonder about who your father was. It doesn't matter who your mother was married to or who she was sleeping with or who thought that they were your father. You know who your father was. Sam raised you. Sam Milhoan was your father. Nothing and no one can ever change that.”
“Sam was -” Reddington shook his head and looked down. When he picked up his head and continued, he didn't talk about Sam. He started back up with the story about her mother and her mother's father. “- Kate's brother, he … was single. Right in front of your grandfather, Katarina suggested that since he didn't have any children and she didn't have a father, he should be her father at the father daughter dance.
“Katarina was practically giddy as she told me the story of how your grandfather exploded. Of how he started yelling at Kate's brother. Telling him that he had no business trying to play father to his daughter.”
Liz pointed out. “She couldn't have set him up, she couldn't have tricked him into admitting it if she didn't already suspect.”
“Folie a deux is one thing. Folie a trois is harder, but it can work. Once you try to extend it beyond that ...” Reddington shook his head.
Liz waited him out.
“When your mother was born, your grandfather adored her. He couldn't get enough of seeing her - mostly because once she was born and Kate gave up on being a doctor, Kate and Annie picked up and left on a multi year grand tour/crime spree across all of Europe. They didn't come back until it was time for Katarina to start school.
“He would visit them as often as he could, but it was never enough. He wanted to have what Kate and Annie had.”
“He wanted my mother.”
“Not just your mother. He wanted everything that Kate and Annie had. He wanted their bond, their closeness. The way they completed each other's happiness. And yes, he most certainly wanted your mother.
“He tried to recreate it. He got married.
“I certainly wasn't there so I don't know if they all let your grandfather's new wife in on their little secret or if they left her to figure it out on her own, but dollars to donuts, I would bet ...” Reddington shook his head.
“His new wife began to suspect. Why?”
“The way he treated your mother. His wife gave him sons, but sons aren't the same as daughters. I'm sure it's not that he loved Katarina more than he loved his boys, but with girls it's just easier to show them your affection - especially if you're old world Russian and …” Reddington grimaced “... the way he behaved around Mr. Kaplan.”
Liz was excited to learn information about her grandfather - he had been Russian like Annie.
“How was he around Mr. Kaplan?” Liz asked.
She watched as Reddington contemplated a moment before settling on an answer. “Soft.”
“Soft?” Liz repeated. His tone and his expression as he said it spoke volumes. A confused Liz protested. “You said he loved my grandmother - Annie.”
“He did. Your grandfather loved your grandmother very much, but he was in love with Kate. It was obvious to everyone who knew the three of them … including his wife. It was obvious even to a child.”
That just confused Liz even more. “But Mr. Kaplan, she isn't ...”
“No, she isn't.” Reddington shook his head dismissively. “Kate wanted Annie. That's all she wanted. That's all she ever wanted. Your grandfather knew that. He respected that, but you can't always control who you love no matter how hopeless or wrong it is.”
So much for nothing sordid. “That couldn't have gone over well with his wife.”
“No, it didn't.” Reddington admitted. “It caused some friction. Friction that Katarina picked up on.”
“You said my grandfather had sons. I have uncles somewhere?” Liz asked.
Reddington shook his head.
Liz was disappointed, but not surprised. “What happened to them?”
“They died.”
“How long ago?'
“As children.”
There seemed to be a lot of that going around. “How?”
“In a car.”
Reddington with his carefully truncated sentences wasn't telling her everything. A car crash? A car bomb? Accidentally locking themselves in the car trunk while playing?
The almost pleading look on Reddington's face ... Liz knew for both of their sakes not to keep pushing.
Liz looked away.
All of this was information that she hadn't had before, but none of it answered the question of how her mother had found out that Annie wasn't her mother.
Who her mother's father was wouldn't have any bearing on who her mother was. Just because her grandfather had feelings for Mr. Kaplan, that didn't mean that Mr. Kaplan was her mother's mother. Feelings were unfortunately not a prerequisite for having a child with someone.
Liz didn't get the idea that Reddington was deliberately avoiding her question, but he hadn't answered it.
Liz had other questions. She let it go thinking he would work his way back around to it.
“Your mother raised my mother. My mother was your ...”
Liz trained off as she tried to figure out what relation that made Reddington to her mother and by extension her. Reddington supplied his own answer. Even after all these years, the word came out tinged with such bitterness. “Replacement.”
OOO
Just like at their first meeting, she woke to the dog whining and licking her face.
The sun was rising and light was just beginning to filter in through the holes in the cabin's construction.
Picking herself up off the ground, stepping around the dead body, on two feet she made her way over to the door to let the dog out of the cabin.
It had been difficult to resist the urge to leave immediately once she had succeeded in freeing herself but she had made herself be sensible.
At the last possible second, the idea had occurred to her to try to use the trap to break or at least weaken one of the links of her chain.
It had taken several tries but once that was accomplished, she had been able to take the leg shackle and the end of the chain with her to retrieve the key to the leg shackle.
It was too late in the day to start off right away - not to go out into woods she didn't know with no clear direction in mind. She had forced herself to wait for the new day.
By choice, she had spent the night on the floor instead of the camp bed.
She had already packed the night before the minimal amount of supplies she would be carrying out with her. Food, water, and a tarp to keep off the cold ground if she needed to take shelter in the woods at night. It could be one day or it could be a dozen before she found her way out of the woods. She had no idea.
Despite searching the cabin, she hadn't been able to find any of her things that she had arrived with.
Shouldering the pack with her provisions, she opened the door to leave.
She startled as the dog came padding back in.
She had forgotten about him.
He again sniffed and whined at his owner's unmoving form before turning to stare up at her expectantly.
Unsure what to do about him, Kate stared back.
OOO
She really shouldn't have been surprised. She expected Raymond would have gone through her apartments to ensure that there was nothing that led back to him … still, she hadn't expected to find a vacant lot.
If one was gone, it only followed that they were all gone.
She made her way to a nearby coffee house with internet. Logging into her online accounts, she found that Raymond had been nothing if not thorough.
There were people she knew, people she could reach out to for money and other assistance, but … She wasn't ready to see anyone she knew. Not yet.
In the moment, the thing that bothered her the most, her most pressing need was for one of her spare pairs of glasses.
Her scars were concealable, but her broken glasses were drawing attention and more importantly causing her constant headaches.
Unfortunately, they were prescription and not the kind that could be replaced in about an hour.
She could think of one other place where she might find a pair ...
OOO
It had started to rain. Wearing a solid colored plastic rain bonnet the sides of her face were covered. Looking like any other little old lady who had just had her hair done and didn't want the rain to ruin it, she blended into the crowd.
Standing outside across the street from Vanessa's apartment, she realized she was being ridiculous. Her glasses were prescription, but she should just go buy another pair.
It was late and she was exhausted, but she could manage a simple wallet lift or two until she got enough cash for a room for her and her new companion for the evening.
She was about to go, but then she saw Vanessa leave the building.
tbc