Where Lyons Lie

Chapter One

The blanketing fog was slowly burning off, revealing the still, cobalt blue waters of the San Francisco Bay.

Katherine Lyons was peering out her large studio window, while witnessing the unveiling of the city she had grown to love and call home. During the ten years she lived in the Bay Area, her successful art career had made living in this expensive city possible. Her professionally decorated fourth floor apartment was situated high on Telegraph Hill near the noble Coit Tower.

            The warm March sun broke its way through the dense, low clouds and spanked her face with its healing warmth. She then felt her tears as they rolled down her cheeks and along the downward curves of her mouth.

The short phone conversation she just had with a Wyoming state policeman seemed to play over in her head like a vivid nightmare. When the police officer informed her that her father was dead, she dropped the phone and ran to the bathroom, where she vomited into the commode.

The news of her father’s unexpected death caused Katherine to feel trapped in a realm of disbelief. She didn’t know how to react to such a valid tragedy. 

As she wept, she looked out at the familiar landscape of carefully situated buildings that stood planted at the foot of the city’s rolling hills. The tall skyscrapers of the financial district appeared to be flowing out into the chilly blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.

They both shared the love of the outdoors, either through art or living off the land, as he had done. She was, of course, her father’s daughter, but now he was gone. How she would miss his long visits to the San Francisco area, and their countless travels which had taken them to Africa, Alaska, and all the other places they had not yet discovered together.

The reality of that thought made her wish for her life to expire, so she could be with him now.

The sick feeling in her stomach now burned up into her throat, as the policeman’s confessing words played over and over in her head.

Katherine climbed into her unmade bed and curled into a ball. Her entire body rippled with emotion, as she tried to accept the truth of her father’s sudden death.

Seeing her cell phone on the nightstand, she had an overwhelming need to call him. She would call him sometimes twice a day. He was the person she would call if something happened, good or bad. She didn’t even have to think about it, he was always there.

Katherine then slowly reached over and grabbed the phone and brought it up to her face. Calming herself and wiping her eyes, she stared at the keypad. She wanted to hear his tender, fatherly voice one more time. She wanted to say good-bye…. It just didn’t seem possible, she said to herself.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes for a few seconds, her eyes now burning from her endless flow of tears. She then touched the keypad with her index finger like she had done a thousand times before. Her hands were trembling and her heart was pounding, as she brought the cell phone up to her right ear. She could hear her own heart beating and feel her stomach agitate with anxiety. She then heard his number being dialed….. Then she heard it ring….. Two rings…. Now five rings. By this time, Katherine was fighting to keep herself from hyperventilating. She was holding the small phone with both hands now and sitting up in anticipation, her body rigid, and her mind spinning with rapid thoughts of hope. But, at the end of the sixth ring, his voice mail message chimed in.

Hearing her father’s voice, Katherine gasped, and then held her breath while tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Her mind concluded that he was alive and she wanted so desperately to believe it, but reality told her that he is gone. Hearing his voice doesn’t mean he’s okay, she told herself.

His recorded message then stopped; she heard a loud beep and then silence…. “Daddy… I love you… I love you… Good-bye.” She pressed the phone off and threw it on the bed along with herself, and screamed into her pillow, where she cried for what seemed like hours.

Feeling restless, Katherine slowly pulled herself out of bed and walked over to her easel where she had been painting when she got the call. Her creative mood to paint had now been replaced with a crushing sense of loss and disbelief.

She was feeling both emotionally and physically drained, but she had several phone calls to make before flying home for her father’s funeral, which she would have to arrange.

She first had to call and purchase an airline ticket, and leave a message on her answering machine explaining her absence. Her agent would have to be called, because she had a new wildlife print being released in a few days, and there was a two-week tour to several galleries throughout the country that would have to be postponed.

            While rummaging through the closet for her suitcases, her mother came to mind. Katherine wondered if she had been notified of her estranged husband’s death. The idea of calling her mother weighed heavily on her mind. They hadn’t spoken for nearly two years, and she was sure her father hadn’t talked to her in over ten.