Surviving Goodbye

by Morgan Parker

I did my best to hide the embarrassment from surfacing on my cheeks, but I failed.

  She giggled again. “You needed that outlet, huh? That release.” She opened the passenger door, but I stopped her.

  “You should’ve knocked,” I said, trying to give her my stern tone through the absolute embarrassment shrouding my voice.

  She seemed to consider my advice, then laughed and shook her head, leaving the car. Before hurrying toward the school doors, she leaned back in. “I think I know what I’m getting you for Father’s Day next year, Papa Bear.” More giggling.

  I struggled with my words as she shut the door and walked away. I watched her, reminded of that very first day of school when Karen and I had taken the morning off. We brought her to the school together, our little girl all grown up. My throat burned and my heart pounded as my Lena’s clammy hand had gripped mine. I hated that I would lose her to this hard and cold organization. I was worried she’d pick up bad habits from her new and unknown friends, meet boys and do things she’d never confess to me or her mother. The school had gained a genius student while I felt like I had lost my innocent angel.

  A daughter that wasn’t mine, but my daughter nonetheless.

  Just outside the school’s front doors, Lena glanced back at the car and made a suggestive hand gesture that forced the red burning heat back to my face. Shaking my head at her, I pulled the transmission into Drive and pulled away, fully aware that I had less than two and a half hours until Veronica showed up, but determined to make that trip to the Pontiac Notre Dame Prep School.

  Knowing that Woodward could get slow at this time of day, I drove north on Adams to the I-75. This highway had its share of traffic issues—a broken-down transport just past South Boulevard, a cop car at the side of the road but not stopping anyone. However, once I crawled through the mess, I reached 80 mph without issue and hit the University exit in less than seven minutes.

  As a child, Karen had attended the Pontiac Notre Dame Prep school, which only reinforced the common belief among her family that I—a state educated child—was severely undeserving as her spouse.

  Once I reached Giddings Road, the street narrowed and presented an abundance of potholes, upsetting the Chrysler. The trees on either side were lush, still full after a hot and dry summer. Like driving through a State Park or some remote corner of Northern Canada in the middle of summer. But the thick greenery opened up the closer I came to the school buildings. The lawn belonged on a golf-course; the tennis courts on the left seemed better suited to a private racquet club. And in typical Detroit-area fashion, all it took was a moment that spanned the length of snapping fingers for me to move from “less-desirable” to “utterly refined.”

  Making my right turn onto the campus grounds, I drove through the open gates into a vast parking area. I chose a spot closer to the administration building to shorten the walk; I didn’t want to be late getting home for my lunch date with Veronica.

  At the reception desk, I asked for Catherine Duncan, one of the guidance counselors whose profiles I located on LinkedIn. Her “connection” to Jamie suggested she might possess a soft heart. Hopefully soft enough to bend a few rules if needed, or maybe just soft enough to work a little harder for Karen’s widower.

  “Ms. Duncan will be with you shortly,” the receptionist told me.

  I barely heard her words through the pounding in my ears. I felt as nervous as a first-time bank robber, my body flirting with a decision to either have a heart attack or let me piss my pants. As cool as I could manage, I rolled away from the reception desk and studied the plaques on the wall, not recognizing anything beyond the occasional word. I rehearsed my angle, nothing really making sense, and then a minute or so later—

  “Mr. Fitch?”

  I spun around, wiped my clammy palms down the length of my thighs, then extended the left one to a short and chubby woman who had to be in her mid-fifties. She nodded for me to follow her back to her office.

  She sat in the chair behind her desk, while I settled into one of the less comfortable seats where a hundred or so students had sat before me. The crowded bookshelves bragged of intellectual works by Malcolm Gladwell and Jack Welch.

  I made a production of rolling my eyes, making sure she saw it before I told her why I had come. And I ended with: “So that’s why I’m here and why I believe in miracles.”

  She smiled and nodded, linking her hands together and leaning forward on her desk. Her response was so casual that I wondered if people sought out backlisted copies of yearbooks all the time. This entire time, I had expected a bit of resistance.

  Huh, this was not as difficult as I had imagined.

  “What three years do you have?” she asked me.

  “Freshman, sophomore and her graduating year.” I shook my head. “That would be ninety-four, ninety-five and ninety-seven.” Big sigh. “That leaves just ninety-six, her junior year. I’m sure she would’ve had that yearbook at one point too, but neither I nor Elena—she’s the daughter I’m creating this scrapbook memorial for—could find it when we cleaned her sh-er, shtuff out of the house.” I shook my head and forced an innocent chin quiver.

  Catherine Duncan gave an understanding and slightly patronizing nod. “I understand.” She didn’t. “Let me make a quick call. I’m sure we can spare a copy from our excess inventory.”

  Seemed easy enough. I watched her pick up the phone, dial, and talk to someone on the other end. She relayed the years, then covered the mouthpiece.

  Did people really speak on the phone like this outside of academics?

  “They’re going to look into storage,” she told me. “Could be awhile.” Then a shadow crossed her face. “I was saddened by the news of Karen’s passing. When Jane called and asked me to speak with your niece, Jennifer….” She shook her head. “Death is loss, and loss is never an easy topic for the students.” Her eyes lit up, and she angled the receiver back to her mouth. She grunted a few uh-huhs and then an uh. “Alright, yes, please pull it. I’ll let him know.”

  Once she hung up, I asked, “Are they able to sell me a copy?”

  “Not a problem at all, Mr. Fitch. But you realize there will be a surcharge for this yearbook.”

  “Of course. When can I pick it up?”

  Before she could respond, someone knocked on the office door. She called for the interrupter to come in, and I glanced over my shoulder, watching a student come in with Karen’s junior yearbook in her hands. She handed it to me like it was the Bible, then left.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “Wow.” My heart slammed against the inside of my chest, anxious to get the hell out of this school and start flipping through the pages for the other potential sperm donors. “Where do I leave my check?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “For the yearbook? The surcharge, I was going to write a check.”

  Catherine Duncan chuckled. “Yes, of course.”

  She provided the appropriate instructions, and I scribbled a check with a shaking hand. I had to hold myself back from running out of the building to my car. My strides were quick, but I didn’t run.

  Inside the Chrysler, I opened the yearbook, grabbed a pen and started circling all of the Wills and Samuels. I stopped counting at twenty, but kept drawing circles. I had to open the windows to let the warm air escape. Once I finished with the first round, I explored some of the other pages—the activity pages and candids—dog-earing the ones that contained pictures with Karen.

  I didn’t worry about numbers just yet. I had forty-five minutes to get home, slide into a fresh change of clothes, and get ready for my lunch date with Veronica.

  When the doorbell chimed, I froze at the kitchen island with the laptop open before me. I realized just how quiet the house was—should I have turned on some music?—despite the loud chaos in my head.

  I pushed away from the computer and walked to the front door. Oddly, I had believed that the cleaning and tidying would’ve made this moment less awkward, less of a production, but that wasn’t true. I took
a deep breath, stretched my neck from side to side, and reached for the door handle, pulling the door open.

  “Hiya!” Veronica said, a big smile on her face. She wore her orange and blue work uniform and, when I shifted my glance to the side, I saw that she had driven here in her delivery truck. “Nice ride, right? I know that’s what you’re thinking.”

  I smiled, looked down at my own outfit, feeling like a freak show. Dress pants, white shirt with the top button open. I looked like a circus exhibit or a tech investor. All I needed now was a pair of sandals to slide over top of my socks. “I…” I shrugged. “Sorry, I thought…”

  She laughed, a jagged and unrefined sound that surprised me. It also felt absolutely perfect. Her hand reached out and touched my forearm. “It’s okay,” she assured me. “I got called into work today. And since Ava is at school, I thought I could use the extra money and…” She trailed off, then shook her head. “I’m lying.” More head-shaking. “I thought if I took the shift I could avoid putting my money where my mouth is.” Then a shrug. “I’m a big talker, Mr. Fitch.”

  Her words sucked the air out of my lungs. I felt rejected, but not in a bad way. “Oh, that’s okay.” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder, indicating the kitchen island, which she couldn’t see from the front porch unless she had x-ray vision. “I’ve got a long list of names to get through. Long story.”

  She laughed. “It’ll have to wait,” she said, then chuckled. “Big talker or not, I’m here now. We’re having lunch.”

  “Of course.” I kept the excitement out of my tone, afraid she would see it as plain as day. I thought she might need an excuse to get out of this lunch date of ours.

  “You want me to come in?”

  “Sure, I cleaned.” Stupid thing to say; I shook my head, disgusted with my imbecilic tendencies while in Veronica Murphy’s presence.

  She looked around as if searching for something, then shrugged when she remembered. “Shit. Stupid me. My work policy states I can’t enter a customer’s house while wearing this uniform.” She sighed, pinching her shirt right below her embroidered name. “We’ll have to go out somewhere public.” Another shrug.

  “Oh, right. I should’ve known.” I turned around and found a pair of shoes—no sandals. “How do you get into your own house? Do you take your uniform off?”

  She titled her head, unsure whether it was a legitimate question or if I had made a bad joke. It was legitimate all right; I was legitimately nervous. “Um, yeah. I don’t wear this in public. I wear clothes like I did yesterday, regular clothes. When I’m not working, I avoid the orange and blues. You look great, Elliot.”

  “You too.” Another stupid thing to spew because it was her work uniform, and nobody thought of their work uniforms as being very fashionable.

  I stepped out of the house before anymore stupid words (and there were plenty of those in my inventory) could slip past my lips.

  “Want me to drive, or do guys your age take offense to that kind of thing?” she asked, trying to keep the mood light, but I became instantly aware of the tremendous age gap between us. Plus, she was nice to look at, very comforting for my eyes. I owned a mirror and, despite my age, I wasn’t blind enough (yet) to know I might score seven on a scale of ten on one of those ultra-generous days where I didn’t look like a guy pushing forty-two with greying hair around his ears.

  “Your call,” I said, shrugging and praying today was one of those generous days. “I’ve never been in one of those vehicles before.”

  “Then today’s your lucky day, Mr. Fitch,” she said, offering a gentle punch to my shoulder like I had won the Make a Wish lottery. “Hop in,” she said, opening the passenger door for me.

  I latched my seatbelt while she settled behind the wheel.

  “Do you stalk all of your deliveries? I’m surprised you remember where I live,” I said.

  She pulled away from my house, checking her blind spot. “I don’t have many deliveries from Liberator.com, much less from men like you who blame the delivery on their teenaged daughters.” She shrugged. “Really, how could I forget?” She giggled and its nervous undertone offered mild comfort.

  I shook my head. “Really, it’s my daughter’s.”

  “Uh-huh.” She steered into downtown Birmingham. “Cosi okay for you, Mr. Suit Pants?”

  “Perfect.”

  She parked diagonally on Woodward, half a block up from the Cosi.

  “You’re not embarrassed about the wedge, are you?” she asked as we crossed the street.

  “Of course not,” I lied. I wanted to be a cool parent, younger than I really was because Veronica was younger.

  We continued across the street. “What kind of names are you looking through?”

  “Names?” I asked.

  “Back at your place, you mentioned you were going through a bunch of names.”

  I frowned. Had I said that? “It’s a long story,” I told her, opening the door to the restaurant.

  “That’s why we’re having lunch, remember?” she offered with a wink.

  “Right.”

  We placed our order, then found a table outside. It had been Veronica’s suggestion.

  Fuck, I’m nervous. I rubbed my palms along my thighs to dry them off, couldn’t maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time before having to look outside to calm my nerves.

  “So?” she asked. “What’s the long story?”

  I gulped. “You really don’t want this sad story,” I said.

  She shrugged to lighten the mood, but her persistent stare suggested she actually wanted the sad story, any story. “Take a shot, let’s hear it.”

  I didn’t know her, and nobody else knew about Karen’s confession. I had no reason to distrust Veronica, but I also had no reason to trust her. However, a woman like her—young, tattooed, delivery driver for a mid-market courier service—didn’t know any of the people I knew. Right? If anything, given her age, she might know some of Lena’s friends, but if that were the case I probably would’ve met her already, or heard about the friend with a blue streak in her hair, who had a young child and didn’t go to school and drove a delivery truck now. With all of that in mind, I mutely declared her “safe.”

  I could share the secret of my wife’s infidelity.

  As if reading my mind, Veronica leaned onto the table, searched her surroundings with wide, anxious eyes like our discussion involved matters of national security. “It’s okay, Elliot Fitch,” she whispered. “I haven’t told anyone about your sex wedge, I’ll keep this long story to myself as well.”

  I leaned closer too. Just to play along. “Okay,” I whispered back. “When my wife died, she told me that my teenage daughter, the one who keeps ordering sex toys and is now pregnant, big surprise, right? Well, that daughter, I found out, isn’t mine.”

  Veronica’s eyes shot open, super-wide.

  Pause.

  “Ta-da!” I said, except the words shot out as a choked whisper.

  Veronica suddenly backed away from me, placing as much distance between us as possible. Her slack face suggested I had just told the most shocking story she had ever heard. And maybe it had been a little too much for a first non-date lunch. So I backed up a bit too, sitting straighter in my chair and crossing my arms.

  “That’s pretty shitty,” she admitted after a long silence. “Wow, I’m speechless.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve had a year to deal with it.”

  She frowned. “But how does that explain the names?”

  “Looking for a possible father,” I admitted like that made perfect sense. And once I realized that “looking for a possible father” meant nothing to her, I elaborated and told her about Nathan, the guy from the wedding video and curved dick—which got Veronica giggling again, a good thing, like getting a “congratulations” from the Priest after confessing that you broke the school bully’s face—and the other past “lovers,” Will and Samuel. “That’s where I’m at. Trying to find these guys from her past.”

&nb
sp; “Does your daughter know you’re not her father?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have the heart to tell her. She’s got enough on her plate.” I blinked, frowning. “Once I find him, I might reconsider telling her. Until then, it’s my secret.”

  “Our secret,” she corrected me, grabbing her sandwich and biting into it. “You need two people for a secret, right?”

  I began eating too. It felt good telling someone about the dark cloud that had been following me since Karen’s death.

  “I’ll help you, Elliot,” she declared once she finished the first half of her sandwich.

  “I wish it were that simple. No offense, but you couldn’t be much help. You didn’t know my wife.”

  She raised an eyebrow and glared at me. “Apparently, you didn’t know her either.” She shrugged. “No offense, but I’m a woman. I know how we think, how we work. Obviously way better than you do.”

  “Why ‘obviously?’” I didn’t know if I sounded defensive, I was genuinely curious why she found it so obvious. Because she was a woman and I wanted to know how she thought and worked.

  “Plus, you can’t say ‘no’ to me.” She batted her eyes, taking advantage of my sensitive side. “Single-mother, works her ass off to give her daughter the things she never had as a kid.” She itched at her neck, revealing more of that tattoo on her collarbone. Never, that was what the tattoo said—never—but there was more. “Outside of my girl and her gymnastics lessons every Saturday, I’ve got nothing else to occupy my time.”

  “Do you think I’ll feel sorry for you?” I asked, chuckling despite the mystery of what might be written along her collarbone.

  She shrugged. “I’ve got better sob stories to tell than that,” she promised with absolute ease. “You don’t want to hear them all right now, do you?”

  I chuckled. “Fine, you can hel—”

  “Perfect,” she said a little too eagerly. She leaned forward again. “You’re worried about that Nathan guy. He’s your best lead.”

  “But if I’m wrong, I don’t have any other names on my list…”

  “I’ll find you some names,” she promised. “I’ll stop by your place tonight after work, and you can give me what you’ve got.”