"Watch your mouth, boy!” warned Jack. “Now do you want to hear this, or not?" Tommy closed his mouth as quickly as it opened, desperate to finally hear the truth. Jack began.
“After Catherine and I started dating, she began to notice Kendricks giving her weird looks, showing up in random places, putting upsetting notes in her locker at school. I wanted to kick his ass. She wouldn't let me. Eventually, her grandmother got a restraining order against Kendricks on Catherine’s behalf. After a while he let up, starting acting like he just wanted to be her friend. She wanted to believe the lie. I never did. She believed that people could change. No matter how chummy he acted, I never trusted him.”
“After graduation, we didn't see him as much at first. A year after high school, Catherine became pregnant with Adam. The day after she told me, I proposed. We were married at St. Augustine's on December 1, 1974, and Adam arrived seven months later. We lived in the guest house at first, near the lake. It was just the three of us, so we were okay on space. But it was short-lived. Liam came two years later, and we moved into the main house, swapping spaces with Grandma and Gus. Catherine's anxiety had been kept under control until this point. When she became pregnant with Tommy, she was warned that if she continued taking her anxiety medication, she could harm the baby. She went off the meds, cold turkey. She agreed to try to relax and not think about Kendricks who was, at this point, sending letters every day to the house. She didn’t let me see them.”
“With each pregnancy after Liam, she became depressed and anxious. Paranoia began to run rampant. We had to hospitalize her twice because her thoughts turned dangerous. She began to isolate herself on the third floor where she would focus on her art, afraid to come out, thinking that he would be there. She felt that she was a danger to others in the sense that if Kendricks came for her, he’d come for us too. It wasn’t until later that I learned that Kendricks’ was writing her threatening letters. He had been for years. “
“She hid it from me because she knew I would go after him, and she didn’t want to see anyone get hurt. I was much more concerned with him harming her. The anxiety that resulted from his stalking was too much for her to handle, so she needed medicine. When she became pregnant with Tristan, things seemed to improve. There was rarely a moment when she didn't have a smile on her face. Then something changed. She went back to the dark place. I began intercepting the letters. Hiding them from her. I didn’t want anything to upset her further. That’s when we started noticing something peculiar.”
Jack pulled out a leather photo album, filled to the brim with old photographs. One page was bookmarked, and he opened it up to what looked like a birthday party. Catherine was smiling as the wind gently blew her dress. In one hand she held a glass of sweet tea, in the other a horseshoe that she was about to toss. In the background, there is a table festively decorated with balloons and a colorful table cloth where Frank and Bridgette sat with a small brown-haired baby on her lap – Blake. Frank and Bridgette were in the midst of a conversation, and Bridgette was on the verge of laughter unaware of the figure standing just ten feet behind them in the forest clearing. Peering his face through the trees, Bernard Kendricks watched Catherine intently, almost oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be there.
No one realized he was there until they developed the film. Catherine had taken the film cartridge to the three-day photo booth at the Danville Shopping Center. She began flipping through the shots, smirking at each one, laughing at the photo where she had smashed a slice of birthday cake in Jack’s face after he told a particularly bad joke of which she was the brunt. She continued flipping through them happily when finally she came across the photo in question. She was about to discard it at the bottom of the pile when she abruptly stopped, having noticed something strange, something that didn’t belong. As she studied the face that was peering out of the forest brush, she felt the blood rushing to her head. Twenty-three photographs fluttered to the linoleum floor of the three-day photo booth, while Catherine stared in silence at the photograph. Molly Binns, just fifteen then, stared at Catherine.
“Mrs. Morrow? Are you okay?” Catherine heard the girl, but didn’t respond.
“Mrs. Morrow?” pressed Molly.
Catherine nodded at the girl, eyes wide, trying to break free of her momentary shock. Molly helped her pick up the photographs from the floor, and Catherine accepted them quietly. It wasn’t until she got into her car that she began to scream. She hit the steering wheel in rage. Bridgette, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to her, stared at her as if she was insane.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?!”
“This!”
Catherine, still seething, passed the photograph with her shaking hand to Bridgette, whose hand flew up to her dropped jaw.