PodCastle 782: The Girl Who Never Was

* Author : Harold R. Thompson

* Narrator : Wilson Fowlie

* Host : Matt Dovey

* Audio Producer : Devin Martin

*

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PodCastle 782: The Girl Who Never Was is a PodCastle original.

Content Warning for the death of a spouse.

Rated PG

The Girl Who Never Was

Harold R. Thompson

I met Kate Krimple at a downtown coffee shop. Kate’s new children’s book was called Tayo and the Wolves, about a dog who claims to have lived with wolves for a week. I was to provide the cover and interior illustrations. This was the first time we’d met face to face, and I was happy to find her warm and easy to talk to. In fact, our conversation came so easily that we moved on to talking about ourselves.

“Is Krimple your real name?” I asked.

I guess that was maybe a little too forward, but the way things were going I felt comfortable asking, and I was happy to see her smile.

“No, of course not. It’s Dugger, but Kate Krimple has a better ring to it.”

She tucked a lock of dark hair behind one ear, and I wondered how old she was. I’d read her official bio (in which she was definitely Kate Krimple and not Kate Dugger), but there’d been no mention of a birth date. Then I wondered why that mattered. It just popped into my head.

“How about you?” she said. “I like to know things about my artists and illustrators. Family? Kids?”

No, I told her, I’d been married, but . . .

“She passed away. Cancer.”

I gave her the same shrug I used every time.

“It happened quite a while ago,” I added.

She offered her condolences, and asked, “So no kids?”

I guessed, as a children’s author, she was always curious about her market.

“No, we never did. I always wanted to, but it didn’t happen.”

She nodded, but her smile had faded and I could feel a darkness creeping in and knew I had to lighten the mood.

“At least my house is tidy,” I said. “More or less.”

We moved on to other topics. When the meeting ended, we shook hands and I promised to show her some sketches soon.

I headed home to the outskirts of town, to the rambling old former farmhouse I’d inherited. I stood on the front walk and stared up at the dark windows of the second story, and what I’d said to Kate came back to me. The house would have been a good place to raise kids, but now I lived there alone. It was too big, it was too old, but it had been the setting for most of my life, and I couldn’t imagine anything being different.

This was a bleak thought, and I sensed that darkness was still there, hovering just out of sight, so I opened the front door and went straight to my studio on the main floor. I’m never unhappy there. I sat in my oak banker’s chair, surrounded by the light from the many windows, and gazed around at the various works, some completed, some just sketches and ideas.

On one of my easels was a half-finished watercolour of a dog, sitting with one paw raised. Yellow coat dabbed with orange.

I hadn’t painted that picture.

I went into the kitchen to start making my meagre one-man supper. I noticed a package of chocolate-chip cookies on the counter. The package was open.

I didn’t eat cookies.

I paced the front hall, wondering if I should call the police, but a strange painting and a pack of mystery cookies didn’t seem like the basis for an actual crime. I told myself there had to be a simple explanation,