I laughed. “If it’s any consolation, I feel bad leaving you to report all the news by yourself.”
“Eh, I’ll be fine,” she said and gave me a smile. “I’m a born multitasker. Seriously, though. You’ve been great to have around. And again, I’m so sorry about your mom.”
“Thanks. Take care, Maggie.”
She gave a little wave and picked up her phone. Next I stopped in Paul’s office. I unclipped my badge and handed it across the desk to him. He stood and stretched out his hand. “It’s been wonderful having you here,” he said. “You’re very well liked at the Desert News.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stay longer.”
“It’s okay. We all knew it wasn’t permanent, and you did a hell of a job while you were here. Stop in and say hi next time you’re in town.”
“I will, Paul. Thanks again.”
*
My dad helped me carry the last of my things out to the car. We’d made several trips already, similar to the way we’d unpacked the car upon my arrival five weeks ago. I slammed the rear hatch of my Jeep.
“Do you have time for a cup of coffee before you go?” my dad asked.
“Sure.” I followed him back inside and took my usual seat at the kitchen table after grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge; if I actually drank another cup of coffee my heart might explode. We’d fallen into a routine in the days since Mom had died: breakfast and coffee in the kitchen, lunch—usually sandwiches—outside at a table on the back patio, and dinner in front of the TV, mostly carryout or pizza. Several breaks throughout the day, which I’d noticed had increased in frequency, sometimes making it seem as if we did nothing but sit and eat and drink. The irony was that, for all the time we spent on those activities, my dad seemed to be eating less and less, and his half-drunk coffee remained on the table until it grew cold, in which case he’d pour a fresh cup and the cycle would begin again.
But we talked, about everything and nothing. We talked more in the days following my mom’s death than we had in the past ten years. They were good conversations, and at one point I said, “Would you consider moving to San Francisco?”
“That’s very nice of you,” he said.
“I wasn’t saying it to be nice.”
“If I move anywhere it’ll be to the cabin.” My dad owned a small cabin at Lake Tahoe, and he made several trips a year to go fishing with his buddies.
“Wouldn’t you be awfully lonely there?”
“I’ll be lonely wherever I go.”
There was absolutely no rebuttal for that.
None.
Now, in the kitchen, my dad took a drink of his coffee and said, “I guess you’ll want to get on the road soon.”
I glanced at my watch. “I can stay a little longer. I told Daisy I’d stop by and say good-bye to her and Elliott on my way out of town.”
“She’s that pretty nurse, right?”
“Yes. Her son is the one you said you’d take fishing.”
“Then I better keep my promise. She gave me her number at the hospital. I think I’ve still got it around here somewhere.”
“I feel like I’m deserting you, Dad.”
“You’ve got your own life to lead, and I have mine. It won’t be the same without your mother by my side, but I’ll get by.”
“I can’t imagine what this is like for you.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can. Until you find a woman you can’t live without, it will be hard for you to imagine what it’s like when she’s gone. Your mother did everything in her power, every single day, to make me happy. I would have gone to the ends of the earth for her if she’d wanted me to. That’s what it comes down to. When you find a woman who makes you happy, you’ve got to make her happy, too. And hold on to her tight, because you won’t have any way of knowing how long she’ll be yours. No matter how long it is, you won’t feel like it’s been enough when she’s gone.”
My dad stood up and carried his coffee cup to the sink. He stared out the window and said, “You better get going. Especially if you still have a stop to make.”
I pushed my chair back and my dad followed me out to the driveway. After we hugged, I said, “I’ll be back in about a month, for Thanksgiving.”
“That’ll be fine. Don’t feel like you have to come, though.”
I knew what he was thinking: that the only reason I’d still come home for the holidays would be to lessen my feelings of guilt over him being alone. Then, after the holidays were over, he’d expect my visits to get shorter and the amount of time between them to get longer. Eventually, we might transition to phone calls instead of actual visits. It was true that my mom had been the glue that held this family together when it came to the holidays. In all the time I’d lived in San Francisco I’d only missed a few holiday dinners, and that was only because I had to work. But as I stood there in the driveway, one hand on the door of my car, I vowed not to become the kind of man who would stop spending the holidays—or time in general—with his dad, even when his dad seemed perfectly willing to give him a free pass.
“I’ll be there, Dad.”
He nodded and gave me another hug. “Drive safe.”
*
Daisy answered the door when I knocked. Elliott was standing next to her. I felt a pang when she smiled and said, “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi, Bwooks!” Elliott said, jumping up and down.
I ruffled his hair. “Hey, buddy.”
Daisy was holding a sand bucket containing a shovel and some plastic toys in one hand and her purse in the other.
“Are you going somewhere?” I asked.
“We’re heading to the park to play for a while before Elliott’s nap. Would you like to come with us?”
“Sure. I’m not in any hurry.”
“It’s only a couple of blocks away, so we can walk.” She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Jeans and a T-shirt? You’re slipping.”
I smiled. “I have a casual side. Just don’t expect me to show up in a wifebeater and baggy jeans.”
Daisy wrinkled her nose. “Do you even own such things?”
I gave her a look. “Please.”
When we reached the park, Elliott said, “I want to dig in the sand first.”
Daisy handed him his bucket. “Brooks and I will be right over there,” she said, pointing at a nearby picnic table.
“Okay, Mama.” Elliott walked to the sandbox ten feet away and plunked himself down, upending his bucket of toys.
“Are you packed and ready to go?” Daisy asked after we sat down on top of the picnic table so that we were facing the sandbox, our feet resting on the bench.
“Yes. I told my dad good-bye already.”
“I bet that was hard,” Daisy said.
“It was. I asked him to consider moving to San Francisco.”
“What did he say?”
“He said no. We have a fishing cabin at Lake Tahoe. It’s kind of rustic, but he loves it. He said if he moved anywhere it would be to the cabin. Speaking of which, I reminded him that he said he’d take Elliott fishing sometime.”
“That’s very nice, but I don’t want him to feel like he has to. I can take Elliott myself.”
“Honestly, he wouldn’t be doing it out of a sense of obligation. He loves kids and he loves to fish.”
“Okay then. Elliott would love that.” Daisy set her purse beside me. “Can you watch this? And keep an eye on Elliott for a second? I have to go to the bathroom. I never leave him unattended when we’re here, so it’s a rare luxury not to have to make him stop playing and come with me.”
“Absolutely. Go. We’ll be fine.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right back.”
Daisy had only been gone a matter of minutes when some kid—a boy of maybe eleven or twelve—sprinted through the sandbox, weaving between the kids who were playing. Elliott, who had been squatting in the sand, lost his balance and fell backward on his butt. Remembering that I’d promised to watch Daisy’s purse, I s
cooped it up and intercepted the boy as he turned around to make his way back through the sandbox again.
“Hey!” I said. “Did you not see the little kid you almost ran over?”
“How am I supposed to see him?”
“I don’t know, maybe with your eyes.” I led him over to Elliott. “Quit being a punk and tell him you’re sorry.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Go,” I said, pointing my finger toward the other side of the playground.
I helped Elliott to his feet. “Are you okay?”
He adjusted his glasses. “I is okay, Bwooks. That boy is mean. One time he kicked sand in my face and it stinged!”
“Then what happened?”
“Mama tooked me to the bathroom and splashed water in my eyes. Then she got mad at that boy.”
Daisy walked up to us. “What happened?”
“That kid over there almost ran over Elliott.”
Daisy turned to see who I was pointing at. “Oh, yes. I have to watch that one. He’s here all the time.”
“So I’ve heard. Here,” I said, handing Daisy her purse. “I didn’t want to leave it on the table.”
“Thanks.”
“I want to play with my toys,” Elliott said.
“You can have ten more minutes. It’s almost nap time.”
I followed Daisy back to the picnic table.
After we sat down, she said, “There are so many reasons I want a house of my own someday, but one of the biggest is so that Elliott can play safely. I want a fenced-in yard with a sandbox and a swing set that’s just his.”
“Something tells me you’ll have it,” I said.
“I will,” she said. “I’m getting closer every day.”
Daisy’s independence and resourcefulness were two of the qualities I admired the most about her. She certainly wasn’t waiting around for anyone to give her the things she wanted.
“Listen, you need to go to the range and shoot, okay? Don’t let too much time go by without handling your gun. You won’t be as comfortable with it. Are you taking it with you when you leave the house?”
“It’s in my purse right now. That’s why I asked you to watch it.”
“I’m worried about you and Elliott. Don’t get complacent, even if you think the threat of danger has passed.”
“We’ll be fine,” she said. She tried to sound stoic, but there was no mistaking the undertone of sadness I heard in her voice.
Daisy was a lot of things: beautiful, kind, smart, and strong. But she was a horrible actress, and the look on her face at dinner, the one she’d waited a few seconds too long to hide, told me how she really felt about my leaving. And if I’d had any doubt, she drove the point home by not asking me to come in, proving that she had a hell of a lot more self-restraint than I did. Because if she had invited me in, the first thing I would have done as soon as she closed the door was back her up against it and kiss her. I’d been desperate to feel her mouth underneath mine again, especially since I’d been staring at it all through dinner. I wanted to plunge my hands into her hair, and I wanted to touch her wherever she’d let me.
But I’d put my life on hold, and it was waiting for me to come back to it. Staying in Fenton was never supposed to be anything other than temporary. What was I supposed to do? Quit my job in San Francisco and move to Fenton?
I had to go.
However, now that my leaving was imminent and despite the fact that I loathed long-distance relationships, I couldn’t bear the thought of cutting ties with her.
“My work schedule makes it hard to come back as often as I’d like, but I’ll be in town for the holidays. We could get together then. In the meantime, there’s always the phone. And we could e-mail and text. Whatever you want. There’s a direct flight out of Ontario. I could fly you up sometime.”
“That’s a really nice offer,” she said. “But I’ve been waiting so long for my life to start. To get past these roadblocks and false starts. I need to move forward, and I have Elliott to think about, too. I’m sorry.”
She hardly needed to apologize, not when I was the one who was leaving.
“I’ll miss you, Brooks.” She hopped off the picnic table and avoided my eyes when she said, “It’s time for Elliott’s nap.” She walked over to him and crouched down, helping him gather his sand toys.
When they began walking toward me, I met them halfway. “Here, I’ll carry the bucket.”
Daisy gave it to me and took Elliott by the hand, leading him across the parking lot and toward the sidewalk. Elliott reached up and put his other hand in mine, and he kept ahold of both of our hands all the way home, even as we walked, three abreast, up the stairs to the second floor.
When we reached Daisy’s door, I crouched down until I was at Elliott’s eye level. “I have to go now. You’re an awesome kid.”
He smiled at me, no idea what kind of good-bye this was. “Okay, Bwooks. Bye!”
I waited until Daisy opened the door and then I handed her Elliott’s bucket.
“You better get going,” she said.
“Good-bye, Daisy.” I wanted to kiss her, but that’s how this whole mess had gotten started.
Elliott’s hand slid from my grasp as he and Daisy walked into the apartment and shut the door behind them.
His hand was small and soft and scratchy with sand, and letting go of it was almost as hard as saying good-bye to his mother.
CHAPTER 34
DAISY
It’s true that when it comes to men, my luck hasn’t been all that great. I lost my virginity to my high school boyfriend, Curt, the night of our senior prom—right after we pledged our undying love to each other—and was unceremoniously dumped by him four months later after we left for separate colleges. He’d discovered that a smorgasbord of drunken hookups was infinitely preferable to remaining faithful to a girl who was matriculating halfway across the country.
After Curt, I started dating Joe, who was kind and thoughtful and showed me by comparison that Curt had had absolutely no idea what he was doing in bed. Joe and I dated until graduation, when he finally admitted that he couldn’t see himself settling down at twenty-two and took off for an extended backpacking trip through New Zealand. The truth was, I wasn’t ready to settle down either, and it was only in retrospect that I realized Joe and I hadn’t been well matched in a number of significant ways, most notably his propensity for taking giant bong hits, playing video games for twenty-four hours straight, and his reluctance to “join the rat race.” And by rat race he meant get a job.
Despite never having traveled much herself, my grandmother had tried her hardest to instill in me a sense of adventure, of wanderlust. “There is so much to see in this world, Daisy,” she’d said. “Don’t limit yourself to your own backyard.”
I’d started out on the right track. I’d gone off to college at San Diego State with hardly a backward glance. I’d spent a memorable vacation in Australia with a few of my closest friends during winter break of my junior year and was looking forward to seeing a few more stamps in my passport in the not-too-distant future. There were plenty of cities in the US I’d never been to, either, and I planned to rectify that as well.
When I graduated, my classmates began to scatter themselves across the country: to New York City and Portland. Austin, Seattle, and Boston.
But not me.
I collected my BSN and came right back home to the only constant I’d ever known. I couldn’t imagine my grandmother living out her final years in that small apartment all by herself, despite the fact that she’d never once acted like she minded.
I would travel someday.
I would leave this dying town.
I had plenty of time to start living my life. In the meantime, I settled into my job at the hospital and decided I had a lot to be happy about.
One night after seeing a movie, Pam suggested we eat at Dee’s Place. The restaurant, which was owned by the family of one of our classmates and named after his mother, DeAnna, had b
een around for as long as I could remember. The menu focused on home cooking, and was heavy on meat and potatoes, which had never been my thing.
“Dee’s Place?” I said to Pam. “Really?”
“There was a write-up about it in the paper,” Pam said. “It’s called DiStefano’s now. Didn’t you see it?”
“No, I must have missed that one.” The Desert News included a weekly supplement to the newspaper called the Desert Diner. The reviewer seldom pulled any punches, and as a result the reviews were often highly entertaining.
“Apparently it’s had a complete overhaul. The reviewer couldn’t stop raving about everything.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s give it a try.”
When Pam and I walked through the front door, I blinked several times. The interior had been completely gutted. The standard restaurant-issue tables and chairs—with their Formica tops and vinyl upholstery—had been replaced with cozy booths that lined the perimeter of the room and counter-height tables arranged in a line down the center. Gone were the kitschy knick-knacks, plastic-covered menus, and the old jukebox that had stopped working sometime in the early nineties. Polished, dark hardwood had replaced the old linoleum and whoever had designed the lighting was a genius. Pendants in jewel tones hung from the ceiling, giving the dining area a beautiful glow.
“Wow,” I said. “This is incredible.”
The woman who greeted us was at least five years older than we were and was dressed all in black: fitted turtleneck, pencil skirt, sky-high stiletto heels that click-clacked on the floor as she led us to our table. She had diamond studs in her ears and wore her hair in a tasteful bun. I would come to find out that all the women who greeted the customers—no one would dare refer to them as mere hostesses—dressed in an identical manner, like something out of a Robert Palmer video.
Pam looked down at her jeans and lightweight sweater. “I feel like a total slob,” she said after we’d been seated.
I was dressed in a similar outfit. “Me, too. I’m buying a pair of black stilettos tomorrow. I have nowhere to wear them, but I must have them.”