“How does that happen?”
“I don’t know. I just loved her.”
She breathed out heavily. “I wish I could hurt that way.” The child had fallen asleep on the woman’s lap, and she adjusted her head against her mother’s breast.
“Will you stay in Atlanta?” I asked.
“No. The only reason I was in Atlanta was for his job. His funeral is going to be held here. Then I’ll have to go back and sell the house and get rid of everything.” She looked at her child. “I suppose I’m lucky to have her to keep me focused. Do you have any children?”
“No. We kept putting it off. It’s my biggest regret.”
She looked down at her daughter and kissed the top of her head. She turned back to me. “So what do you do to forget?”
“You don’t forget,” I said.
“Then what do you do to survive?”
“I think everyone has to find their own way. I walk.”
“You take long walks?”
I hid my amusement at the question. “Yes.”
“And it helps?”
“So far.”
“I’ll have to try that,” she said. She leaned back and closed her eyes, pulling her daughter into her. It was maybe five minutes later that she was asleep. I wished that I could have slept too. There was just too much on my mind. She didn’t wake until the pilot announced our descent into LAX. After we landed she said, “I never got your name.”
“It’s Alan.”
“I’m Camille.”
“It’s nice meeting you,” I said.
“Thank you for being so sweet,” she replied. “I’m glad I sat next to you. Maybe it was a God thing.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Keep walking,” she said.
I turned my cell phone back on as I walked up the Jetway. I was feeling incredibly anxious, simultaneously eager and afraid to ask how my father was. I went into the men’s room and washed my face, then walked back out to the terminal corridor and called Nicole. She answered on the first ring.
“Are you in LA?” she asked.
“I just landed. How is he?”
“He’s still in the ICU, but he’s stable. He’s sleeping now.”
I breathed out in relief. “Thank goodness.”
“How are you getting to the hospital?”
“I’ll take a cab.”
“I can pick you up.”
“Do you know how to get here?”
“I’ll ask one of the nurses.”
“I’m on Delta. I’ll meet you at the curb.”
“I’ll call when I get there.”
It was good to hear Nicole’s voice, even though the last time I’d seen her I’d broken her heart. I wondered how long we’d be able to pretend that hadn’t happened. Down in baggage claim, a sizable group was crowded around the baggage carousel even though there were just a few pieces of luggage on it, unclaimed stragglers from an earlier flight.
I walked to the carousel and waited, leaning against a long, stainless-steel coupling of luggage carts as I looked over the eclectic gathering of humanity. McKale once told me that airports were “stages of mini-dramas.” She was right. All around me stories played out. There was a joyful reunion of an elderly woman and her children and grandchildren. There were lovers, entwined and impatient to be elsewhere. There was a returned soldier dressed in camouflage, his wife’s cheeks wet with tears and his two children holding balloons and a hand-drawn welcome home sign. There were the lonely businessmen with loosened ties and tired, drawn faces flush from cocktails, impatiently checking their watches and smartphones.
Camille, my acquaintance from the plane, was halfway across the room from me. She was being held by a tall, silver-haired man as tan as George Hamilton. I guessed he was her father. She said something to him and they both turned and looked at me. She waved and I waved back before they both turned away.
I saw a beautiful young Hispanic woman who reminded me of Falene. I took my phone back out and replayed the voice mail I’d received just before hearing about my father from Nicole.
“Alan, this is Carroll. Sorry it took so long, but I found your friend. Her phone number is area code 212, 555-5374. Good luck.”
My friend, he called her. Was that what Falene was? She’d been my executive assistant when my life was good. She’d been my comforter after McKale’s funeral. She’d been my support throughout my walk. Then, after expressing her love for me and disappearing, she’d become an enigma. Friend was too inadequate a word.
I had hired Carroll, a private investigator and friend of my father’s, to find her—which he had. At least physically. Emotionally, I had no idea where she was. I wondered if she still cared about me. The thought of calling her crossed my mind, but I quickly dismissed it. I was in the middle of enough emotional turmoil. Besides, it was already past 2 A.M. in New York.
It was nearly a half hour before my pack appeared near the end of the long parade of baggage. I lifted it over one shoulder and walked out of the terminal to the curb to wait. Five minutes later my cell phone started ringing. It was Nicole. “Did you say Delta?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got my pack.”
“I’m just entering the airport now. I’m driving a red Pontiac Grand Prix.”
“I’m near the second exit,” I said. “I’ll watch for you.”
A few minutes later I spotted her and waved. She sidled up to the curb, popped the trunk, then got out of the car. It had been three months since I’d last seen her, and she looked different. She’d lost weight even though she had little to none to lose, and her hair was styled differently. She looked different but pretty. She was always pretty.
I laid my pack on the ground and we embraced. “It’s good to see you,” she said.
“It’s good to see you,” I replied. “Thank you for being here.”
I threw my pack in the trunk and slammed it shut; then Nicole handed me the car keys. We both climbed in and I drove off toward the hospital. Another hospital—the sixth since McKale’s accident. I was spending way too much time in hospitals.
Even though it was October I rolled my window down a little. The night air was sweet and cool. I love California; I always have. But I couldn’t believe I was back so soon.
CHAPTER
Two
As happy as I am to see Nicole again, we’re living in denial, ignoring the fact that the last time we saw each other I broke her heart. I wonder how long our fiction will last. It’s like repairing a leak with duct tape and wondering how long it will hold.
Alan Christoffersen’s diary
“How was your flight?” Nicole asked.
“Long.” I adjusted the rearview mirror. “How did you find out about my father?”
“We were supposed to have our weekly phone call to go over my finances. You know your father—he’s never late, and he never misses anything. So when he didn’t call I called his cell phone. A client of his answered. He told me that your father had been rushed to the hospital with a heart attack. He said they’d been at lunch when your father started to complain of chest pains.
“The client had had a heart attack before, so he recognized what was going on. He called 911 and they rushed your father by ambulance to the hospital.”
“How did you get down here so fast?”
“I took the first flight from Spokane to LAX. He had just gotten out of surgery when I arrived.”
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“I care about him,” she said softly. “He’s been good to me.”
As I listened to her, it occurred to me why Nicole was so close to my father. I had initially assumed it was because of her inherent kindness—which was, no doubt, part of the reason. But her closeness to him transcended mere kindness or friendship. It was something much deeper. She had been close to her own father before he committed suicide. I believe that she was looking to fill that hole—first with her landlord, Bill, the man who had unexpectedly left her a sizable inheritance, then wi
th my father. It made sense. No wonder she had caught the first flight here, and no wonder my father loved her so deeply. She was the daughter he’d never had, and she gladly played the part.
I reached over and took her hand. She put her other hand on top of mine.
“What else do you know about his condition?” I asked.
“Not much. They won’t give me the full details since I’m not family. I had to tell them I’m his niece just so they’d let me see him. The doctor will talk to you.”
“He’s there this late?”
“No. But he said he’ll be there in the morning.”
“But you’ve seen my father?”
“Yes.”
“How does he look?”
“He looks like he’s had a heart attack,” she said. “When I saw him he was still pretty drugged up. I held his hand for a while.”
“I should have been there,” I said. I looked over. “I shouldn’t have gone back out. He didn’t want me to go. Maybe he knew.”
“Don’t do that. No one knew. He was glad you were going to finish your walk.”
“He said that?”
“Yes. He knew how important it was for you. I know he didn’t see that at first, but he came around.”
I breathed out slowly. “It really is good to see you again. The last time we talked . . .”
She stopped me. “Let’s not go there. I’m here for you. That’s all you need to know.”
I squeezed her hand.
“So how is the walk going?” she asked.
“One step at a time.”
“How far did you get?”
“Almost nine hundred miles. I made it to Folkston, Georgia, just a few miles from the Florida state line.”
“Meet anyone interesting?”
“Very.”
“More interesting than me?”
“I found a woman who had been tied to a tree by a cult leader. I ended up spending part of the night in their compound and helping another woman escape.”
“That’s got me beat,” she said. “You should write a book about your walk. I’d buy it.”
“I’d have to say it’s fiction.”
“Why is that?”
“No one would believe it was true.”
CHAPTER
Three
It is an inevitable and frightening moment in our lives—the day we realize our parents might be as flawed as we are.
Alan Christoffersen’s diary
We arrived at the hospital a few minutes past midnight. I had been to Pasadena’s Huntington Hospital before. Actually twice. The first time was when I was nine and I’d had pneumonia. The second time was a year later when I was playing punchball at school and broke my arm.
It had been a long time since either of those events, and the hospital didn’t look the same as I remembered it.
Following Nicole’s directions, I parked near the east tower. We went inside and took the elevator to the second floor.
The corridors in the ICU were wide and lined with glass walls separating patients’ rooms. We approached the nurses’ station. A tired older woman with tousled hair and wearing dark blue scrubs looked up at me with heavy eyes. “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Robert Christoffersen.”
She pushed a few keys on her computer, then looked back up at me. “Are you family?”
“I’m his son. I just got into town.”
“Just a minute.” The woman looked back at the screen. “He’s in B237.”
“Thank you.”
Nicole and I walked to the room, stopping outside the door. R. CHRISTOFFERSEN was printed on a sheet shielded behind a plastic holder.
“You go in first,” Nicole said. “You should have some time alone with him.”
I nodded, then pushed the door open and slowly stepped inside. The room was dark, lit indirectly by a fluorescent panel behind the bed and the lights of the monitors. It smelled of antiseptic.
The man in the bed didn’t look like my father. His usually perfectly coiffed hair was uncombed and matted to one side, and his chin was covered with stiff gray stubble. He looked old. Too old. It had been only seven weeks since I’d last seen him, but he looked like he’d aged years. He had an IV tube taped to his arm and an oxygen tube running to his nose. His mouth was partially open as he snored.
I just stood there, looking at him. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who had towered over my childhood like a giant—solid and unyielding as a granite fortress. I gently touched his arm, but he didn’t wake. After a few minutes I sat down in one of the padded armchairs near the side of the room.
After a while I glanced down at my watch. It was five minutes past twelve, California time, three in the morning eastern time. Exhausted, I slumped back in the chair. I’d come completely across the country to be with him, but I felt like I was still miles away.
A wave of sadness washed over me, and my eyes welled up. I had been worried about leaving my father, but the truth was, he was leaving me. Maybe not tonight, maybe not even this year, but things were changing. Time was gaining on us.
The possibility—the eventual inevitability—of his death would mean more than just losing my father. It would be the end of the world I had known, a world once inhabited by my mother and my wife. My father was the last, fraying line to my past, the sole witness of who I was and where I had come from. It may have been only the emotion of the moment, but somehow I could already feel the growing vacuum.
I had sat there for maybe twenty minutes before Nicole quietly opened the door and slipped into the room. She walked over to the side of my father’s bed and gently touched his arm, then came and crouched down next to me. She pulled my head into her neck, gently running her fingers along the nape of my neck the way McKale used to do. She felt good. Comforting.
“Has he woken?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was soft and caring. “Are you okay?”
I didn’t answer, which I suppose was an answer. After a few minutes she whispered, “You need to get some sleep. It’s late. Especially for you.”
“I’ll just sleep here,” I said.
“Why don’t you go home and get a good night’s rest? He’s not going anywhere.”
“Home?” I asked.
“Your father’s home.”
I looked back at my father’s sleeping form. Nicole was right. I was so tired that I could have easily fallen asleep in the chair, but it would have been a miserable night and I was exhausted enough already. “All right,” I said. “Where are you staying?”
“At the Marriott,” she said. “It’s close.”
“Why don’t you just stay at the house?”
“Maybe later,” she said ambiguously. She took my hand. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
I stopped at the foot of the bed and looked at my father, then touched his leg. “I’ll see you in the morning, Dad,” I said softly.
He groaned lightly, but never opened his eyes.
On the way to the parking lot I handed the keys back to Nicole and asked her to drive. Neither of us said much on the way to my father’s house. I was just too tired, emotionally and physically.
With the exception of the front porch light, which came on automatically, the house was dark. The first thing I noticed was that there were leaves on the lawn. Of course there were leaves on every lawn on the street, but on my father’s lawn they were as out of place as penguins. My father didn’t abide unraked leaves. After I turned ten, it was my job to see that our lawn was free of them, a responsibility he taught me to take seriously.
Nicole said, “I forgot his house key.”
“No worries,” I said. “My father always keeps one outside for emergencies.”
“Are you sure?”
“If the key isn’t there, it would be the only thing he’s changed in the last seventeen years.”
“Wave if it’s there,” she said, reaching over to unlatch the trunk. ?
??Then call me in the morning when you want to go to the hospital.”
“If my dad’s car’s here, I’ll just drive myself.”
“Let me know,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “Good night.”
“Night,” she replied.
I retrieved my pack from the trunk, then crunched through the leaves to the house. At the front porch I laid down my pack, then squatted down and reached behind the potted kumquat tree next to the door, my hands groping around its flaking plaster circumference. As I expected, the house key was there—just as it had been when I was sixteen. My father had placed it there when I started dating so I wouldn’t have to wake him if I forgot my keys.
I waved to Nicole, and she backed out of the driveway. The car’s headlights flashed across the front of the house as she pulled into the street. I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
CHAPTER
Four
The further along we get on our life journey the more we wonder about those who traveled before us and paved the road.
Alan Christoffersen’s diary
The house was as dark as a cave, which wasn’t surprising. If my father had a religion, it was thrift, and to leave a light on was a cardinal sin. But at that moment the dark seemed greater than the lack of light. There seemed to be a lack of life, a vacuum of energy. Even after I had turned on the foyer light, standing in the silent and cold entryway filled me with a sense of foreboding. The house felt different than it had just a couple of months earlier when I’d stayed there. Now it felt less like a home and more like a museum. Or a mausoleum.
I laid my pack against the wall, then adjusted the thermostat, which, in spite of the month, was turned all the way down. I waited until I heard the furnace kick in; then I walked to the end of the hallway to my father’s bedroom and turned on the light.
Not surprisingly, his room was immaculate. The bed was made with tight military corners, covered in a bedspread that I recognized from my youth. My mother had purchased the spread in the eighties—several years before she died and my father and I moved to California. My father just didn’t buy things like bedspreads or linens. He was pragmatic that way. If an object still fulfilled its purpose, there was no reason to replace it. A few years back, when I had suggested that he get a new couch to replace the ancient one he’d had for as long as I could remember, he replied, “What’s wrong with this one? It still keeps my butt off the floor.”