“It’s true. She can’t just show up one day and decide to be a mom.”
Luna clung to her mother, a shield against his attack. “She didn’t.”
Alex was quiet, watching them both, and just when Letty thought he would go, he said: “You’re right. She didn’t decide to be a mom. She was forced to. She probably wishes every day she’d stayed in Mexico.”
His words hit Letty hard. Luna started to cry—a loud, heartbroken wail—and Letty squeezed her tight, pressing her nose into her daughter’s hair. Even all these months later, Luna still smelled like Maria Elena, and as she inhaled, she was filled with an unexpected strength.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “But I’m not letting you stay out all night every night with your girlfriend. It’s not happening.”
Alex turned around and walked out the kitchen door. After he’d crossed the living room he paused, turning back to face her.
“You don’t need to worry,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to turn out like you.”
“That’s right, you’re not.”
It was one thing they could agree on, at least.
—
Wes called again while she was taking Luna to school, and then, while she was walking to work, he called a third time. She should answer it, she knew, but she hadn’t had time to think. All morning, as she’d readied herself for work and Luna for school, Letty had told herself: I need time to think. Just one hour alone in a dark room to figure out how to talk to Alex about first love, and then one more to work out how to explain why she’d never told his father about his existence. Wes might not have told him yet, but there was no doubt in her mind that he would, and she wanted to be ready with her own side of the story when that happened. But she didn’t have a quiet hour; she didn’t even have a quiet minute.
It felt like just yesterday that she’d made her first old-fashioned, and already the rhythm of her job had shifted. From the time she clocked in at 10:00 A.M., the bar was rarely empty. Rick was right. People were looking for a place to get a decent drink, and an airport was one of the few places it wasn’t unusual to have a roomful of businessmen drinking martinis at 11:00 A.M., having just disembarked from a flight from Frankfurt or Barcelona or Baghdad. What had surprised her, though, was just how quickly word had gotten around. Letty credited the specials board, where she wrote the names of drinks like the Silver Bullet, Bijou, Rattlesnake, and Corpse Reviver #2 pulled straight from The Savoy Cocktail Book and with her own additions (mint and sage and fennel, all fresh), and also the empty-restaurant phenomenon: an empty restaurant stays empty, a full restaurant stays full.
Ernie Thompson—the man who’d drunk her first old-fashioned—was partly to thank for keeping her bar full. He drank as much as he traveled. High up in tech, he flew once a week at least, and often with his entire team—fifteen men who could hold their liquor just as well as Ernie. Usually they came and went without warning, but today he’d called ahead. His team was flying to Austin, but before their flight they were meeting a group from Singapore. There would be over twenty of them, he’d said, at two o’clock, and asked if she could make a round (or two or three, Letty translated, knowing Ernie) of something with mint. He loved the wild mint she plucked from the bay on her way to work, which Rick had taught her to smack against the side of the glass before garnishing, a strangely aggressive act that released a sweet and delicate odor.
After some thought, she had settled on the Southside Fizz, and she spent the entire morning prepping: squeezing limes and trimming mint and tasting gins, and then setting a long table with waters and bar napkins. When Ernie arrived she set to work (Heads up! she heard Rick remind her) measuring and shaking and pouring, all the while answering questions about the history of the drink (Southside Sportsmen’s Club, Long Island) and the origins of the gin (local to San Francisco, hints of citrus and botanicals). As soon as the others arrived, they sat down and got to work, and Letty considered it a success when the entire table requested another round without asking to see the drinks menu.
She’d just finished saying good-bye and thanking Ernie when she looked up to see Rick. She didn’t expect him to be there. He wasn’t on the schedule that day, and he was dressed in street clothes, jeans and a gray polo shirt, the frayed collar open wide. She wished he hadn’t come—too much had happened, and she didn’t have the energy to explain—but even as she wished it she found her sight glued involuntarily to the tattoo on his collarbone, its pull magnetic. Her heart beat hard in her throat as she moved to clear the table.
“You have a party?” he asked.
“Ernie again,” she said. “And some businessmen from Singapore.”
“Nice.”
“Yep.” She peeked inside the black folder at the credit card slip. He’d left her $125—the biggest tip of her life. She carried a tray of dirty glasses to the bar, and Rick followed behind, plates stacked in his arms.
“I tried to call you.”
He was silent, waiting for an explanation for his unreturned voice mail. She hadn’t even listened to it. Rick had been the last thing on her mind that morning, and as much as she wanted to start right where they’d left off—Letty force-feeding him hot fudge and feeling the nervous excitement of a beginning—too much had changed. “Sorry,” she said finally. “I just— I had to get the kids to school.”
The mountain of dirty glasses was a welcome distraction. Turning all her attention to loading the dishwasher, she filled the rack and then sank below the bar, pretending to look for the dish soap even though it was sitting on the floor right in front of her. With the machine full and set to wash, she wiped her way down the bar, Rick moving from stool to stool to stool as she went, so that when she finally looked up it was once again into his eyes. “Hey—are you okay?”
She sighed. She was not okay. But before she could figure out how to tell him that, the phone rang. There was no one else to answer it. Turning away from Rick, she grabbed the handset mounted to the wall.
“Flannigan’s.”
“It’s me.” She recognized his voice immediately. Older, deeper, angrier—and with none of the longing or the loneliness of those first calls from college—but still the same. She glanced over her shoulder, to where Rick waited.
“You can’t call here,” she said. “I’m working.”
“What was I supposed to do? You don’t answer your cell.”
Alex must have told him where she worked. Letty wound the long cord around her finger, waiting for him to continue. She wished Rick would get up, get a glass of water or go to the bathroom or something, anything, so that he wasn’t just sitting there, his eyes on the back of her neck.
Wes waited for her to answer.
“I don’t know what you should do,” she said into the phone. And then, against her better judgment, in an attempt to get him off the line, she added: “You know where I live.”
At this, she heard Rick clear his throat, and when she looked at him his eyebrows were pinched together in question. Who is it? he mouthed, but she shook her head and turned away.
“I don’t want to talk in front of the kids,” Wes said. “And we need to talk.”
“What do you want me to say?” she asked, exasperated. “I said I was sorry.”
“Oh, my God, Letty, how can you even say that?” His voice was so loud that Letty was afraid Rick would hear. She half-covered the receiver with her hand as he continued. “I have a son. It’s not an ‘I’m sorry’ kind of moment. It’s a big fucking deal.”
“I’m not saying it isn’t.”
She glanced back to where Rick had been sitting, but he was gone, and just then she felt his hands on her shoulders, the heat of his body like a wall behind her. She leaned into it, listening to Wes struggle on the other end of the line. When he finally spoke, his voice was childlike, confused.
“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked. “It’s not like I can just take my son out to dinner and then drop him off and go back to my life. This changes everything.”<
br />
“I know it does.” Letty sighed, long and loud into the phone. He was angry, furious, and yet he was coming to her for advice, for approval. It reminded her of Alex, and she felt awash in tenderness toward him then, for his muddled pain, every bit of it caused by her own poor choices.
“Listen,” she said. “I don’t know what you should do. Really. If I did I would tell you.”
They were silent, Wes on one end, Letty on the other, Rick silent behind her.
“You have to tell me something. You can’t just not talk to me.”
“I’m talking, aren’t I?”
“But you aren’t saying anything.”
He wanted her to decide how he should move forward with his son. As much as she wanted to help him, it wasn’t her decision to make.
“Talk to Alex,” she said. “If you want to be a father, ask him if he wants one. He’ll tell you the truth.” A crowd of noisy college students walked down the hall in front of the restaurant. Letty held up the phone to amplify the passing commotion. “Sorry, Wes, we’re slammed. I’ll call you later.”
Before he could protest, she said good-bye, returning the phone to its hook on the wall.
“What was all that?” Rick asked. Letty reached for a dirty rag and wiped down the already-clean bar. She was shaking. Rick watched the sloppy, quivering circles and then moved closer, reaching out to cover both her hands with his. He held them until they were still, only her heart pounding. “Are you okay?”
A nod was all she could manage. More and she might melt into a puddle on the clean bar. She could tell by his expression that he wanted to know what was going on, but just when she thought he would press her for information, he pulled away. Reaching behind her back, he untied the knot on her apron. Her shift was over.
“Go clock out,” he said. “I have somewhere to take you.”
—
Fifteen minutes later, Letty sat in the passenger seat of Rick’s Highlander, her body relaxing into the curves of the road as they climbed farther and farther into the woods. Windows down, she felt the fresh air fill her, and she remembered immediately what she liked best about Mission Hills: the trees. Unlike the flat grassy marshes of Bayshore or the crisscrossing cement arms of the San Francisco airport, the trees here told the time of year. Flashes of red and gold surrounded them in the near-bare branches.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Rick said as they turned onto a long, wooded drive. “It’s not the first house you see.”
The first house she saw was bright white, set back among the trees. It was beautiful, but not the kind of beauty she was used to seeing in the Heights. All over the peninsula, small, modest homes were being bowled over and built up with tech money, but out here, where there was land, it was even more extreme: architects designed sprawling Italian “villas” or garish Mediterranean compounds with stucco walls and miles of tile roof. This house was different. It looked like one of the first wealthy businessmen—Letty imagined a railroad man, or a gold rusher—had built a summer home, and the original house remained untouched. It was a simple Victorian, with a double-peaked roof and a widow’s walk between the peaks—the view from there would be amazing—and a wide staircase leading up to the porch. The front door was set between two arched windows. Through one, Letty could see wood floors and white walls, but no furniture anywhere. A moving truck was parked in the circular gravel drive in front of the house.
“Are they moving in or moving out?” Letty asked.
“Neither. They had to empty out the first floor to replace the hardwood. Water damage.”
“From what?”
“It’s a second home. They hadn’t been here in six months, and when they came back they found a leak in the refrigerator. The floors, the molding—everything was ruined. I can’t even imagine how much it’ll cost to repair.”
Letty knew nothing about second homes—or first homes, for that matter. She couldn’t imagine letting a place this beautiful sit empty.
“It’s good timing for you,” Rick said. “When I asked my mom if she knew anyone with a guest cottage for rent, she said they had just decided to look for a caretaker.”
“What does that mean, a caretaker?” She hoped it had nothing to do with a hammer. None of Enrique’s attempts to teach her maintenance had gone well.
“It just means walking through the house every few days, checking for leaks. Bringing in packages, that kind of thing. In exchange for extremely low rent.”
“Is ‘extremely low’ the same to you as it is to me?”
“A couple hundred dollars a month?”
“Wow.”
Rick parked behind the house and got out of the car. Manicured box shrubs outlined a path through a rose garden, flowers blooming in every color and variety. Beyond the garden, a wide stretch of grass separated the roses from a small cottage. It had been built to mirror the main house, but it was almost dollhouse size, with a tiny double-peaked roof and a wraparound porch. Over one side of the porch a pomegranate tree leaned, heavy with cracked fruit.
“This is it?” Letty asked, her heart skipping with excitement.
“This is it.” He fit the key in the lock and pushed the door open.
The cottage was even smaller inside than it looked. The living room was just big enough for two overstuffed chairs and a coffee table, arranged around a built-in window seat. The walls around the picture window were lined with shelves and cubbies and little drawers, all built from dark, weathered wood; it reminded her of an old-fashioned card catalog, or the inside of a toolbox. When she opened one of the drawers she saw that her second guess was correct—they were full of nails, bolts, screws, and screwdrivers, all separated by size and variety.
Far from the rest of her life, Letty felt her stress ease, and she allowed herself to be led from room to room, Rick’s hand on her lower back. Three steps down a short hall and she stood in the first bedroom, two twin beds and a desk under a window. Through an open bathroom door she could see a second bedroom on the other side. She and Luna would have to share a room, but Luna wouldn’t mind—she’d probably prefer it, and by the time she wanted her own room Letty would have both enough money and enough credit to move anywhere she wanted. If she wanted. She’d been in the house only five minutes, and already she wasn’t sure if she would ever want to leave. She loved the dark wood, the windows that framed living portraits of the forest, the drawers full of tools that she could replace one at a time with trinkets and toys and photographs and memories, her life filed away in little drawers where she would never lose it again.
“What do you think?”
Rick sat down on one of the twin beds, bouncing like a little boy.
“I love it.”
“It’s a little small.”
“It’s teeny. But perfect.”
“You think so?” Rick asked. He smiled as wide as if he’d built the cottage himself and presented it to her as a gift.
“I do. If they’ll have me, I’ll take it.”
“Oh, they’ll have you.” Color rose to Rick’s cheeks. He hadn’t meant it to sound sexual, but it had come out that way, and the bedroom felt suddenly too small, the tightly made beds suggestive. She grabbed his hand and dragged him through the house and onto the front porch, but outside she realized she didn’t want to leave.
Letty sat down on the top step, and Rick sat beside her, so close their hips touched. She felt her body warm where they connected.
“So,” he asked quietly, and for the third time that day: “Are you okay?”
“I’m better now,” she said. She wanted to leave it at that, but it was unfair of her not to tell him, especially now that he’d gone so far out of his way to help her and her kids. She thought about where she should start, but everything that had happened—the knock on the door, Alex’s late night, the phone call at the bar—it all felt far away here, a soap opera life that belonged to a different Letty. Not the Letty she was in this moment, sitting on a dollhouse-size front porch with a handsome, tattooed man, w
atching the warm afternoon light cast tangled shadows in the rose garden. It couldn’t be her life; except it was. She had to tell him about it.
Rick looked at her, waiting.
“Wes came back,” she said. Then, realizing that meant nothing to him, she added: “Alex’s dad. He just showed up last night, out of the blue.”
“After how long?”
Letty counted the time in her head. “Sixteen years.”
“I thought Alex was only fifteen.”
“He is,” she said. Rick was quiet beside her, and Letty studied the skin on the side of his face, so smooth he must have shaved after lunch, before he’d come to see her.
“So, are you worried about him?”
The concern in Rick’s voice was genuine, and Letty realized what he must have been thinking. A man who left his son and returned after sixteen years—he couldn’t be up to anything good. But of course it wasn’t like that.
“No, no, I’m not worried,” she said. “He’s a good guy.”
She was about to add that he was a doctor, and that before he’d moved back he’d volunteered with children all over the world, but the look on Rick’s face stopped her. As much as he didn’t want Letty to be in danger, she could see from his expression that he also did not want Wes to be a good guy. He looked hurt, and a little blindsided. She tried to think of a way to take it back, to wipe clean the expression on his face, but she couldn’t think of anything to say, and in a fluster of regret, Letty leaned forward and kissed him hard on the lips.
Rick pulled away, startled, his eyes wide with surprise.
“Sorry,” she said.
He shook his head softly, a bewildered smile edging up the corners of his mouth. “Don’t be,” he whispered. Running his finger along her lips, he quieted her and then, pulling her closer, he leaned in and kissed her again.
Across the dark field, planes waited in a quiet line at their gates; except for the occasional barking of the Canada geese traveling south, the night was silent, the Landing as empty as it had been all of Alex’s life. He missed his grandparents. After the fight with his mother, he’d started using their bedroom, thinking the smell of the wax and his grandmother’s perfume might help him sleep, but it had the opposite effect. The smell of Maria Elena brought on a guilt so intense he awoke hourly, sheets soaked with sweat, the words he’d spit at his mother hanging in the air like the smells of her now-constant cooking, a permanent fixture.