Deep Down True

by Juliette Fay

  Behind them, Coach Ro yelled, “Two laps, double time!”

  “Grady’s been telling me all about his team,” said Tina, her eyelids flickering nervously. “He’s totally proud about it.”

  Dana was aware of someone approaching, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Tina. It doesn’t even matter if they aren’t as pretty as you, Nora had said. It’s just that they’re new. And you’re not.

  “Hey there, beautiful.” Jack Roburtin was standing on the other side of the fence. He reached over to land a beefy hand on her shoulder, seeming to Dana as if he were doing an impression of a peacock, flaring his pectoral muscles for lack of a tail. He turned to Kenneth and grinned cockily. “We’re definitely going to win, now that I’ve got my good-luck charm here.”

  Dana almost laughed out loud, and for the briefest moment she wished desperately that someone else were there to confirm that this bizarre scene—Tina with her puffy coat and pug nose, Kenneth pinching at his jacket sleeves in abject discomfort, Jack with his cartoonlike posturing—was actually taking place. This is happening, she told herself, biting the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. These people are real.

  “I’m going to head up into the stands now,” she told them. To Tina she said, “I’m sure I’ll see you again.” Then she smiled at Jack. “Good luck, Coach.”

  “Thanks much.” He pitched her an intimate little wink and added, “I’ll call you tonight.”

  “Sounds good.” And she went to join Morgan and Alder.

  The girls watched as she approached, studying her as if she were some exotic bird that might fly off into the clouds at any second. She took up a spot in between them. Morgan eyed her for a moment, and Dana put her arm around her and gave a little squeeze.

  “Impressive,” murmured Alder.

  “Thanks,” Dana whispered and turned to watch the game.

  CHAPTER 26

  DRIVING TO WORK ON FRIDAY, WITH AN AGGRESsive rain dropping like countless tiny paratroopers onto the roof of her car, Dana felt calmer and more hopeful than she had felt in months.

  The week had been virtually without incident. Grady’s conceit over his game-winning run into the end zone on Sunday had cooled slightly and by Monday morning was evident only in a slight swagger after he catapulted himself out of her minivan at school. A boy Dana didn’t recognize screamed, “Stelly!” and ran at him full throttle, knocking them both to the grass on impact. Grady gave him a happy cuff to the chest as they got up, and they ambled along shouldering into each other as they headed toward the playground.

  On Tuesday night Kenneth had called to say he anticipated a light schedule on Wednesday and would be by to spend time with the kids while she worked late. He left shortly before she got home around eight-fifteen, and she found that Grady and Morgan had done their homework and eaten dinner. They were playing the Wii in the basement, not entirely amicably but without any obvious pinching, shoving, baiting remarks, or snatching at each other’s controller. When Dana walked in, Grady leaned over to Morgan and whispered in her ear. Morgan gave an indulgent smile and nodded.

  Apparently Alder had left with Jet just before Kenneth arrived and had returned after his departure. “Having their dad at the house again was sort of a little fantasy for them,” Alder later explained to Dana. “If I was here, too, it would have been like casting Amy Wine-house in High School Musical. Totally ruins the effect.”

  Dana was almost successful at not asking what Kenneth had given them for dinner, but when she tucked Grady in that night, the question seemed to grow legs and sneak out on its own.

  “Chicken nuggets,” he said, rolling back and forth in his Star Wars comforter until his lower half was satisfactorily encapsulated in fabric Jedi. “In the microwave instead of the toaster oven like you make, but I ate them anyway,” he said, pleased with himself. “And an apple.”

  “Cut up?”

  “No he just handed it to me.”

  “Did you eat it?”

  “Yeah,” Grady snorted sarcastically. “Like that would happen.”

  She threw the blanket up over his head and tickled him until he giggled like the little boy he was. Then she pulled the blanket back down under his chin and cupped his cheeks with both hands. He grinned up at her, and she realized it was the calmest, happiest look she’d seen on his face in a long time. “Was it good to have Dad here?” she murmured, not wanting the answer to matter as much as she knew it would.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. The grin quickly downgraded as he added, “Before he came, when we were waiting for him, Morgan said, ‘Remember, this is a visit. It’s not like when he used to come home from work and he lived here. So don’t get all sad when he leaves.’”

  Morgan knew how much this meant to him, Dana realized. “Were you sad?” she asked Grady.

  “A little,” he admitted. “I kinda almost forgot about the leaving part. But then she gave me the look. You know, like”—Grady tilted his head and raised his eyebrows—“and I remembered.”

  “And you felt better?”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his cheek up against her hand. “Well, no, but then she let me be King Boo in Mario Kart.” He shifted onto his side, and his knees slid up toward his belly.

  “That was pretty nice of her,” said Dana.

  “Yeah, she’s nice sometimes . . .” His eyelids drooped and his voice trailed off. “But not that much . . .”

  Dana kissed him good night and went to Morgan’s room; she was sitting in bed with an earth-science textbook propped on her knees. “How was it tonight?” Dana asked.

  Morgan shrugged. “A little weird . . . but okay. Is he going to do that a lot?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on his work schedule, I guess. What were you and Grady whispering about when I came in?”

  “Nothing big. Dad brought us a bag of Twizzlers, and Grady didn’t want me to tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I think he just wanted to have a secret about Dad. Like it would kind of keep the feeling of him being here.”

  Dana smiled. “Thanks for being a good big sister.” Morgan shrugged nonchalantly, but a proud little grin lit her face all the same.

  Dana reached for the textbook; Morgan hung on to it for a moment but then released it, and Dana set it to rest on the floor. “When you were little, you used to do this funny thing.” She tapped Morgan’s hip, and Morgan slid over to make room. “You always wanted to bring a book to bed with you.”

  “Which one?”

  “Oh, different ones.” Dana ran a finger over the downy strands along Morgan’s hairline. “For a while it was Barnyard Dance . . . Let’s see, you loved The Seven Silly Eaters. I think the biggest hit was probably Goodnight Moon.”

  “Yeah,” she murmured, sliding down into her covers. “I remember that . . . The old lady whispering hush. It was so . . .” Contentment softened the tension around her eyes.

  The memory of a book, Dana mused as she turned off the light and headed out of the room. Wouldn’t life be so easy if that’s all we needed to feel comforted?

  And now, with the windshield wipers flinging themselves frantically against the watery onslaught and thunder crashing against nearby hills, Dana cradled this tiny memory of her two contented children—both happy at the same time, no less!

  In the office restroom, she leaned over to run the hand dryer across the rain-dampened ends of her hair before taking up her post out front. The warm air blew on her neck and down her blouse. It smoothed away the gooseflesh on her arms and made her smile secretly to herself.

  “Dana.” Tony’s voice came from the hallway. “We’ve got patients stacking up out there. You almost done?”

  A prickle of shame ran over her. “Sorry!” she called, and scooted out to her desk. He was squinting at a file and didn’t look up as she passed.

  The phone rang and rang. Patients came in like refugees, shaking drops from their jackets and umbrellas, dampening the upholstery and the air. They left bracing themselves to face the
strobes of thunder bursting amid the downpour.

  “Dana!” called Tony from his office at about eleven-thirty. She cut short the parting pleasantries with a patient and hastened to his door.

  “United Dental changed their policy on sealants—did I forget to tell you that?”

  “Oh, I . . . I don’t think you mentioned it, but—”

  “It’s my fault,” he muttered, waving off her impending apology. “Can you resubmit these?” He handed off the bills as he turned back to his computer screen. She took them and left.

  Marie came out to the reception desk to herd the next patient to the operatory. Before opening the door to the waiting room, she caught Dana’s eye, tipped her head toward Tony’s office, and murmured, “Don’t take it personally. He’s just in a mood.”

  Dana gave her a relieved smile. “I thought it was me!”

  “If it’s you, you’ll know it.” Marie opened the door. “Mr. Kranefus?”

  An elderly gentleman pressed his hands down on the arms of his chair, levering himself to a standing position. “This seems distinctly unsafe,” he grumbled at Marie as he slowly approached. “One is not supposed to use electrical appliances in a thunderstorm.”

  “The building is grounded, Mr. Kranefus,” Marie informed him. “Dr. Sakimoto would never subject you to undue—”

  There was a boom of thunder that seemed designed to rattle their rib cages, and then they were in darkness, the only light a gray cast filtering meekly in through the big glass exterior door. Another thunderous explosion lit up the office with a cold flash, briefly illuminating Dana behind her desk, Marie in the doorway, and Mr. Kranefus with his hands clasped before him. “Thanks be to the Almighty,” he whispered.

  Marie helped him on with his coat and handed him his slightly misshapen fedora. He was gone by the time Tony came out of his office, cell phone pressed to his ear, saying, “Okay . . . all right . . . Tell them to stay safe out there.” He snapped the phone shut. “Blown transformer—the whole block’s out,” he told them. “I’m thinking we cancel the rest of the appointments.” He said this as if he were putting it to a vote, and they nodded their assent.

  Dana used her cell phone to call the afternoon’s patients while Tony and Marie stowed equipment and gathered up instruments for sterilization. Marie left as Dana made her last call.

  “I got through to most of them,” she told Tony when he came to her desk with his jacket on. “But there are three or four who only got messages.”

  “No worries,” he said. “I was planning to come back after lunch anyway. I’ve got a camping lantern in my trunk, so I can get through the pile of paperwork that’s been dogging me for weeks. And if somebody shows, I can let them know what happened.”

  “You’re going out for lunch?”

  “Yeah, you want to join me? I figured I’d head over to Keeney’s for a burger. Seriously, why don’t you come?” He gave her an encouraging smile, but she could see the weariness behind it, and a sort of melancholy. Something was off. Maybe he needed company.

  She had second thoughts as she followed him by car down the storm-battered streets toward Nipmuc Pond. She shouldn’t be spending money when she had a perfectly good yogurt, an apple, and a little bag of carrots sitting on the passenger seat next to her. Too late to back out now, she told herself. Besides, a burger sounded so good.

  “This is on me, by the way,” Tony said as they took a table by the expanse of windows.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Absolutely yes,” he insisted. “I’m the one who dragged you down here to eat greasy tavern food. Anyway, I’ll claim it as a business expense. We’ll say it’s”—he squinted up at the rafters—“ it’s your two-week review.”

  “Oh, really.” She smirked. “Well, how’m I doing?”

  “Excellent.” He smiled back. Then he looked at the menu and asked, “What’re you having?”

  Their burgers came, and they chatted amiably, conversation wending around kids and patients and work. “By the way,” he said. “Don’t try to be friends with Marie.”

  “Why not?”

  “Marie is not about her day job. Don’t get me wrong—she’s a great hygienist. Thorough, efficient, the whole package. But I’m convinced she has some sort of alternative lifestyle going, and work is just something she has to do so she can go back to it afterward. She will not befriend you, so don’t take it like it’s some sort of failure on your part.”

  This evoked such a variety of questions that Dana didn’t know which to begin with. What kind of alternative lifestyle? Why can’t she have friends at work and have her other life, too? But what came out was, “What makes you think I would take it as a personal failure?”

  He gazed out over the rain-pitted surface of Nipmuc Pond, attempting unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. “Come on,” he said, turning back to her. “You like to be friends with everyone.”

  “No I don’t.” This was patently false, so she followed it with, “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “It just doesn’t work with someone like Marie, that’s all.”

  Dana narrowed her eyes at him, and he let out a quick burst of laughter. “Well,” she said, “I guess you’re in a better mood now. Even if it is at my expense.”

  His smile faded, and he said, “I was kind of a jerk today, wasn’t I?”

  “Not really . . . You just seemed like you had something on your mind.”

  He made a little grunt of acknowledgment. “I got a call from Abby last night.”

  “Your daughter in medical school?”

  “Yeah. Vanderbilt. Way the hell in Nashville.” He tossed the french fry he was holding back onto his plate. “Why’d I ever let her go so far away that I’d need a damned plane ticket to get to her?”

  “What happened? Is she okay?”

  Tony described the phone call he’d received late the previous night. Abby was sitting folded into the closet of a comatose patient’s room, crying in a whisper to him that she couldn’t take it one more minute. It was too hard and too demoralizing and if she had to manually disimpact one more constipated elderly patient, she was going to bash in her own skull with a bedpan. “She’s certain the interns sit around thinking up nasty things to make the med students do.”

  “Poor thing,” Dana commiserated.

  “It’s so frustrating, because I know if I could just be there—give her some TLC and a decent meal—I could make about half of it go away! Most of what she eats is from the damned vending machines, and now she has pimples for the first time in her life.” Tony’s hands reached out as if to hold his beloved daughter’s cheeks. “ That beautiful glowing face with pimples—I can’t imagine it!”

  Dana felt her throat tighten. Possibly because she’d so rarely seen Kenneth show the same depth of emotion with Morgan and Grady . . . But no, it wasn’t that. It was her own face she imagined in those loving hands, attached not to Tony or Kenneth . . . but to her own father.

  Dad. In her mind it was almost a plea. Daddy, reach for me.

  But he never had and never would, though it didn’t keep her from wanting it, even now. Even in her forties, with her own children to care for, she would’ve given almost anything to feel her father’s hands caressing her cheeks, to see such selfless concern for her happiness in his gaze. The tension in her throat swelled up into her jaw. She pressed her lips together to subdue it.

  Tony’s hands lowered onto the table, and she realized he was watching her. It was embarrassing, being caught speechless like this. She had to respond, so she took a breath to level herself and murmured, “You’re such a good dad.”

  Then it was his turn to be bashful, giving a little one-shoulder shrug and saying, “I don’t know about that . . .”

  “Of course you are,” she said quietly. “Anyone can see it.”

  “I just miss them.” He picked up his fork and moved the last few french fries around the chipped plate. “They’re their own people now. They’ve gone out into the wor
ld to do good things and find good people to be with.” He looked up at Dana. “But sometimes—God, do I miss them.” His face was calm, but the sadness was so palpable that Dana felt as if it belonged to her.

  And staring back across the table at him, over the condiments and cold remains of lunch, she felt she could see the expanse of his fatherhood—the exuberant, giddy joy, the soul-chilling worry, flashes of anger and laughter, puzzlement and surprise, a love so elemental and indelible that it was written in his every cell. She nodded and barely managed to stop herself from reaching out to give his hand a squeeze—of recognition, or solidarity, or maybe it was sympathy. Morgan and Grady were still with her, after all, and she could no more fathom their being gone than she could imagine her own death.

  The intensity of the moment caught Dana off guard, and she pulled herself back from it, turning to watch a birch tree bent low over the pond. The surface of the water, in constant motion from the pelting rain, seemed to make endless attempts to jump up and touch the dangling leaves. She glanced back at him with a less intimate smile. He followed her lead.

  “So,” he said, tossing his crumpled napkin onto his plate. “What’s up for the weekend?”

  It was Kenneth’s turn for the kids, she told him, and Alder had joined the Wilderness Club at school. She’d be hiking Mount Frissell, the highest peak in Connecticut, on Sunday.

  “And now I know what everyone in your family is doing this weekend except you,” he teased.

  “Oh, not much. Catching up on all the stuff that doesn’t get done during the week anymore,” she said mildly. “Also, I have a date.”

  “Oh?” Tony nodded encouragingly. “Same guy as before?”

  “Same guy.” She shrugged, wishing she hadn’t mentioned it. It felt strangely uncomfortable to talk to Tony about Jack.