“Hey, Dad,” she said with a wave. “How are you?”
“Fine. You?”
“Good.”
“How was the drive?”
“Can’t complain.”
His self-consciousness was contagious. He crossed his arms, and then uncrossed them, while she wobbled the last few yards across the snow and tripped up the porch steps, where she planned on greeting him with a hug. But he beat her to it, gripping her by the elbow and reeling her in, pulling her towards him and giving her a chaste peck on the cheek— except they both moved their heads at the same time and accidentally locked lips.
“Oh sheesh,” she muttered. “Let’s pretend that never happened.” She laughed and wiped her mouth. Oh God, I’m home. His lips were papery dry. “James wanted to come,” she lied, “but there was a crisis at the hospital.”
“Oh. Well, I hope everything’s okay.”
She shrugged. “The locked unit is a cornucopia of alter-nate realities.”
He either missed the irony or ignored it. “I don’t see a ring yet.”
She’d taken off her birthday ring, hoping to avoid this very question. “Nope,” she said with a shrug. “I’d tell you if I was getting married, Dad.”
He nodded slowly. “I see.”
What did he see? What did he understand about her? What had he ever understood about her?
“Maybe next time you can bring James,” Bram said.
“Oh. Absolutely. He wants to meet you.”
“I’d like to meet him, as well.”
Her stomach tensed—well, was that it? Had they already run out of things to say?
“Come inside,” he said.
The front hallway was clean and tidy. Her father’s winter coat hung from the iron coat rack, and his well-insulated boots were tucked underneath the pine bench like battle-hardened soldiers awaiting orders. The woven Navaho basket held today’s mail. The ceramic Chinese bowl cradled his car keys and spare change.
Kate stomped the snow off her boots, shrugged out of her coat and placed everything next to her father’s. Then she followed him into the living room, where the gauzy curtains hung like ghosts, catching the silvery winter light. The house was large and airy, with lots of dark colonial furniture and ever-growing piles of books and magazines.
“You’re looking well, Kate.”
“You too, Dad.”
Okay. How many more bland pleasantries were they going to exchange? She had to break through this wall of avoidance if it killed her. “Well, Dad, I figured it’s been a couple of years since we last saw each other.”
“Three.”
“Right. Three years. That’s a long time.”
“Glass of wine?” he offered politely.
“Sure.” She collapsed in the wingback chair, her favorite piece in the room. Savannah had preferred to snuggle up on the velvet sofa next to the French doors, where she’d do her homework by the dying light of day.
“Be right back.” He disappeared into the kitchen, and she could hear him uncork a bottle of wine and fetch the longstemmed glasses from the china cabinet. “How was your trip?” he asked her—again—through the open doorway.
“Uneventful,” she responded.
“That’s good.”
Next they’d be talking about the weather.
The house was so quiet. No music, no pets. Just her dad and his beloved solitude. She got up and studied the family portrait above the mantelpiece. There was ten-year-old Kate before her mother had killed herself. What a happy-go-lucky kid. No suicide cuts. No evidence of self-harm. In the painting, her parents were smiling, and Kate’s arm was draped protectively around Savannah’s shoulders. It made her want to scream, “Take better care of her! She’s fragile!”
“Lunch is served,” Bram announced.
Kate joined him in the dining room, where the table was set with the good china. Lunch was cold salmon and artichoke salad. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting this,” she said, pleased he’d made an effort. Usually they shared leftovers from the fridge. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Well, today is a special occasion.” He handed her a glass of wine.
“Special?”
“As you say, we haven’t seen each other in quite some time. Cheers.”
They clinked glasses and chatted about mindless things. Catching-up things. Whatever-happened-to sort of things. He watched her keenly as the conversation meandered over familiar territory—friends, relatives, local businesses changing hands, obituaries. Finally, they ran out of topics.
Kate tensed, not knowing where to begin. How to broach the subject. So she ran headlong into it and said, “Henry Blackwood’s going to be executed soon.”
Bram nodded solemnly. “Next week.”
“Did you get an invitation from the Department of Corrections?”
“I threw it away.”
“Me too.”
“I’d be satisfied just to hear about it on the news.”
“Dad?” she hedged. “Do you think it’s possible he didn’t do it?”
He stared at her. He put down his fork. An oppressive weariness came over him. “Who’ve you been talking to? Is it those anti-death-penalty people? They’re relentless. That’s why I screen my calls.”
“No,” she muttered. “It’s just that over the years, a few other girls from the area have gone missing… or turned up dead… Hannah Lloyd and Makayla Brayden… and I was wondering if you thought it was possible—”
“No,” he said stiffly. “Not possible.”
“But, Dad…”
“I don’t want to talk about this, Kate.”
She felt his anger like a splash of cold water.
“Is that why you came home? Because you’re wasting your time.”
“Wasting my time?” she repeated. James was right. Nothing ever changed.
They ate the rest of their meal in sullen silence. In between bites, her father gazed out the window. As the silence solidified between them, he began to relax. His shoulders lost their tension. His face released its tight lines. He seemed to take comfort in the growing distance between them.
A sourness settled into her stomach. Back in Boston, Kate was a doctor. Here, she was a doctor’s daughter. Back in Boston, she cured sick children. Here, her sick mother could never be cured. Here she was an object of pity. A nobody. A nothing.
After lunch, she went upstairs to wash up. The floorboards creaked in all the familiar places as she approached Savannah’s bedroom at the end of the hallway. She paused on the threshold and recalled the night she’d lost her little shadow.
Where are we going, Kate? What’s the big deal?
Shh. Promise you won’t tell.
I won’t! I promise.
We’ll get into trouble if Dad finds out.
I won’t tell a soul! Where are we going?
Savannah had been bursting with excitement at the prospect of a nighttime car ride. Yay! Cool! She was up for anything. Their father was working late, as usual, and Kate had just gotten her driver’s license.
Can you keep a secret?
Yes!
It’s totally confidential.
My lips are sealed. See? I’m throwing away the key.
Now Kate went over to the bureau where Savannah’s old Magic Eight Ball sat gathering dust. She picked it up and turned it over. Reply hazy, try again. Savannah’s beat-up skateboard stood on its leading edge in a corner of the room. Her old-fashioned canopy bed held a jumble of Barbies and Cabbage Patch dolls. On the nightstand was her cherished Hello Kitty backpack, its yellow Nickelodeon button still pinned to the strap. The room hadn’t changed in sixteen years. Savannah would’ve been twenty-eight years old today. A beautiful swan.
Kate put the Magic Eight Ball down and opened the dusty cigar box full of things her sister used to collect—marbles, feathers, insect casings, a headless doll. The china doll used to be hers, except one day it disappeared. Kate only found out where it went after Savannah’s death. The doll minus its head belonged to Savannah
now.
She went to stand in front of the drafty old-fashioned windows overlooking the backyard. Through hairline cracks in the glass, she spotted her favorite tree—a muscular oak with fort-like branches. And there was the old shed where they stashed their bikes and roller-skates. Nothing had changed, and yet her sister’s absence was deafening.
She felt a chill creep over her as she hurried downstairs. “Dad?”
“In the living room.” He’d settled into his favorite armchair, a cracked-leather monstrosity. His polished loafers were parked on the threadbare rug and his feet were crossed on the matching ottoman. His socks were brown. He rested heavy sections of The New York Times in his lap and peered at her over his reading glasses. He wore a look of polite resistance—she was interfering with his routine.
“Can we talk?” she asked. “I mean really talk?”
He shook his head. “Not about that.”
“No, Dad,” she agreed. “Not about that.”
“Because I refuse to pick at old scabs.”
“Okay. No picking. I promise.”
“All right.” He put the newspaper down. “I’m all ears.” He had aged quite a bit in her absence. His hairline had receded, his paunch was a little rounder, and his jowls sagged. Gravity was winning.
She plopped down in the wingback chair and confessed, “It’s been hard for me to come home after having lost so much at such a young age… It’s not easy to overcome.”
“No,” he said soberly. “I don’t expect it would be.”
“But I have a few questions about those early years. Do you mind?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure I have any answers, but go ahead.”
“I remember feeling an undercurrent of tension between you and Mom.”
“I loved your mother.”
“I know. But she wasn’t always happy, was she?”
He shrugged. “Nobody’s happy all the time.”
“True. But I sensed she wasn’t happy in her marriage.”
He rested one mottled hand over the other. “I can be a difficult guy,” he admitted.
“I realize her illness must’ve been hard on you…”
“I think that’s why you became a psychiatrist, Kate. To find out what went wrong.”
“Maybe,” she hedged. “But I also wanted to be a doctor like you.”
“Ah.” He nodded, as if he hadn’t thought of it before. Despite the fact that she’d asked for a stethoscope for her fifth birthday. The year after that, it was a microscope, so she could start preparing for her medical degree.
“What else would you like to talk about? You have my undivided attention.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “Undivided?”
“Why? Don’t you think I’m listening?”
“Half of you is listening. The other half is dying to get back to the book review.”
He clasped his hands over the newspaper as if to prove that he didn’t care, but they both knew it wasn’t true. “I’m listening, Kate,” he said with a rubbery edge to his voice.
She heaved a frustrated sigh. “You may be listening, Dad, but we aren’t exactly connecting, are we?”
He squinted at her. “Is that my fault?”
“You have to admit, you were never the easiest person to get along with.”
“True.”
“And this is probably the longest conversation we’ve had in… I don’t know how many years.”
He shrugged. “I’m a busy guy. You’re a busy gal.”
Kate leaned back in her chair. “You never remarried,” she said. “Why not?”
“I never felt the urge, I guess. I loved your mother. That was enough.”
“I remember the two of you fighting a lot.”
“We didn’t fight.”
“Bickering. Arguing. Having a lot of disagreements.”
“‘A lot’ is a relative term,” he said. “To a child, it might seem like a lot. It was probably average.”
“That’s true.”
“Thanks, Kate. I’m glad that I could be right about something.”
“Sorry, was I being critical?”
“No. Just exacting. Like me.” He smiled.
“What precipitated Mom’s breakdown?”
“Don’t you remember? She became depressed to the point where she started hearing voices telling her to leave me. To leave us.” He squirmed. “Feels like I’m on the hot seat.”
“You said we could talk—”
“Relax. I was joking.”
“How am I supposed to know when you’re joking?”
“You don’t know?” he asked with disappointed eyes.
“No. You’re always so serious.”
His shoulders slouched. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
“I never know when you’re joking,” she admitted.
“Never? That’s pretty definitive.”
She felt defeated. “Well, anyway. Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it. You look tired. Maybe we should call it quits?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait here. I’ve got something for you.” He put down the paper and stood up. His tallness always startled her, like a human jack-in-the-box. He moved with awkward strides through the arched doorway that separated the living room from the dining room, and headed toward the back of the house.
About ten years ago, Bram had converted the old-fashioned parlor into a bedroom, moving all his belongings downstairs so he wouldn’t have to leave the first floor again. His excuse was that it saved on the heating bills, but it was one of those eccentricities that had taken her by surprise. No matter how much Kate thought she knew her father, he always managed to confound her. The downstairs “bedroom” had no door and was quite messy, which she considered proof of his aloofness and isolation. Proof that he never had visitors over. Someone as private as her father would never set up a bedroom on the first floor and leave it doorless if he planned on having guests for dinner.
She could hear him rummaging around inside his makeshift bedroom. Dresser drawers scraped open. A wooden chair was dragged across the floor. Something dropped and ping-ponged across the rug.
A few grunts and another couple of bumps later, and he was back with his right arm extended. “Here. Take this,” he said. “It was your mother’s. I’m sure she’d want you to have it, Kate.”
She held out her hand, and he dropped something into it— her mother’s wedding ring. A modest diamond set in a simple gold band. “Oh, Dad,” she gasped.
“Happy birthday.”
She studied the ring in the palm of her hand and remembered how badly her mother’s fingers used to itch. It got so bad sometimes that Julia would tuck the ring away in her jewelry box and whisper, “Shh. Don’t tell Daddy.”
She wanted to show him how moved she was by this gesture; he rarely gave her anything personal. But she reacted initially with deep-seated cynicism—he had to be kidding. Seriously, a wedding ring? Here ya go, you and James can get hitched now. Hint hint. Then her cynicism transformed into smoldering resentment. Bram Wolfe was not a subtle man. It was obvious he disapproved of Kate and James living together without a marriage license. Her feelings morphed again uncomfortably. As a psychiatrist, she couldn’t help but notice the subconscious incestuous underpinnings of such an act. Metaphorically speaking. Father gives daughter a wedding ring.
But no, that was ridiculous. Finally she allowed herself to be moved by this rare show of emotional vulnerability. Here’s something I can give you that I think you might like—it belonged to your mother.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said, taking his seat. “When I first met your mother I was just starting out. My mentor, one of the town’s few family physicians at the time, had just asked me to take over his practice. He was retiring, so I moved down here from Maine. It wasn’t easy. I had to take out a large loan, and I could barely afford to hire a secretary, but somehow I managed. Anyway, this beautiful young woman came to me one day, com
plaining of a bad cold. I prescribed a bottle of cough syrup and promptly told her I wouldn’t be treating her anymore. She took offense and asked why. I told her—‘Because I’d like to ask you out on a date.’” Kate smiled, even though she’d heard it a million times. “Six months later, I bought your mother that ring.”
Kate gazed at the tarnished wedding ring.
“So when you ask why haven’t I gotten married again? Perhaps it’s because that kind of love is very rare.”
There was a long pause, while the tick-tock of the grandfather clock stretched, and everything inside her head crackled like frost. Her father did have a heart, after all. Why did she need to be reminded of that?
“It’s so quiet in here,” she whispered after a moment.
“I enjoy the silence. I’m used to it.”
“Don’t you ever get lonely?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think about it.”
“There’s a big world out there, Dad.”
He squinted at her as if she’d gone out of focus. “Kate, I have a passport. I’ve been to Rome, Paris, and the Virgin Islands. I watch HBO and Showtime. Just because I never moved out of Blunt River doesn’t make me a rube.”
“No, I didn’t mean that…”
“I have a full and busy life,” he said defensively.
“What I meant was… I’m sorry we’ve been out of touch.”
“Me too.” He made a big show of picking up his newspaper and snapping it open. “I imagine you’ll be getting back to Boston soon?”
“Yes.” She understood something just then. For years she’d desperately wanted her father to love and accept her, but the truth was she didn’t fully accept and love him. She used to, before her mother had committed suicide. But then, as her father gradually pulled away from her, so Kate had pulled away from him.
With great reluctance, she got up to leave. He followed her into the foyer and watched as she put on her coat and boots. She found her car keys in her pocket and said, “Call me once in a while, okay?”
“You never pick up.”
“Leave a message. I’ll call you back.”
“Maybe the lines of communication aren’t so much broken,” he said, “as they are clogged. Like bad arteries.”
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