Lone eagle

Outwardly, nothing changed for them after that, they lived in the same house, saw the same people. Kate still went to the same school, and within days after his death, she started third grade.

She felt as though she were in a daze for months afterward. The man she had so trusted and loved and looked up to, and who had so clearly adored her, had left them, without warning or explanation or any reason that Kate could fathom. All she knew and could understand was that he was gone, and in all the profound ways that truly mattered, her life was forever changed. A major piece of her world had disappeared. And her mother was so distraught for the first few months that she all but disappeared from Kate's life. Kate felt as though she had lost two parents, not just one.

Elizabeth settled what was left of John's estate with their close friend and banker Clarke Jamison. Like Elizabeth, his fortune and investments had survived the crash. He was quiet and kind and solid. His own wife had died years before of tuberculosis, he had no children of his own, and had never remarried.

But within nine months of John Barrett's death, he asked Elizabeth to marry him. They were married fourteen months after John's death, in a small, private ceremony that included only themselves, the minister, and Kate, who watched with wide, solemn eyes. She was nine at the time."

"Over the years, it had proven to be a wise decision. Although she wouldn't have admitted it publicly, out of respect for her late husband, Elizabeth was even happier with Clarke than she had been with John. They were well suited, shared similar interests, and Clarke was not only a good husband to her, but a wonderful father to Kate. Clarke adored Kate, and she him. He worshiped her, protected her, and although they never talked about him, he spent all the ensuing years trying to make up to her for the father she had lost. Clarke was quiet and solid and loving, and took pleasure in the spirit of joy and mischief that eventually rekindled in Kate. And after discussing it with both Elizabeth and Kate, he adopted her when she was ten.

At first, Kate had worried that it would be disrespectful to her father, but she confessed to Clarke the morning of the adoption that it was what she wanted most in the world. Her father had slipped quietly out of her life at the moment his own troubles began, when she was six. Clarke provided all the emotional stability Kate had needed after her father's death. There was nothing he denied her, and he was always there for her in every imaginable way.

Eventually, all her friends seemed to forget he wasn't her father, and in time, so did Kate. She thought of her own father quietly sometimes, in rare, solemn moments, but he seemed so far away now that she scarcely remembered him. All she remembered now, when she allowed herself to, was the sense of terror and abandonment she had felt when he died. But she seldom, if ever, allowed herself to think of it. The door to that part of her was closed, and she preferred it that way.

It wasn't Kate's nature to dwell on the past, or cling to sadness.

She was the sort of person who always seemed to be propelled toward joy, and created it for others wherever she went. The sound of her laughter, and spark of excitement in her eyes, created an aura of joy wherever she went, much to Clarke's delight. They never spoke of the fact that Clarke had adopted her. It was a closed chapter in Kate's life, and she would have been shocked if anyone had spoken of it to her. Clarke's fathering of her over the past nine years since her father's death, had become part of her so seamlessly that she no longer even thought about it. He was truly her father now in heart and soul, not only in her mind, but his own. In every possible way, she had long since become his child.

Clarke Jamison was a much-admired banker in Boston. He came from a respectable family, had gone to Harvard, and was more than content with his life. He had always been happy that he'd married Elizabeth and adopted Kate.

In all the ways that mattered to him, and to them, his life was a success. And certainly in the eyes of the world as well. Kate's mother Elizabeth was a happy woman. She had everything she wanted in life, a husband she loved, and a daughter she adored. Kate had appeared in her parents’ lives, just after Elizabeth's fortieth birthday. It had been the greatest joy of her life. All her hopes rested on Kate, she wanted everything wonderful for her. And despite Kate's energy and exuberant personality, Elizabeth had seen to it that she had both impeccable manners and astounding poise. And once she had married Clarke, after the trauma of John's suicide, Elizabeth and Clarke had treated Kate like a small adult. They shared their lives with her, and traveled extensively abroad. They always took her along.

At seventeen, Kate had been to Europe with them every summer, and they had taken her to Singapore and Hong Kong with them the year before.