“Sammy, it’s Aunt Billy. Is Mommy home?”
The phone was dropped on the floor, and I could hear Tess’s exasperated voice saying something to Sammy.
“Hello?” she said, in a tired voice.
“It’s Billy.”
“Hi, hon, what’s up?” She didn’t sound too interested but I could hardly blame her.
“Bath time?”
“Yep. Sammy wants to wear his red pants in the tub, so I can’t get him in and Joy doesn’t want to get out, even though the water is about as cold as Lake Michigan.”
“Oh, sweetie.”
“Don’t feel bad. This is par for the course. What’s up with you?”
Oh, not much. Just left my husband and got on a plane to find my father.
“Well, this is kind of out of the blue,” I said, “but-”
“Sammy!” Tess screamed. “Put that down! Billy, he’s going for my curling iron. I forgot to unplug it. I gotta go. Call you later.”
I sat in the silence of my hotel room, praying that the gods of electrocution would spare Sammy. I thought about calling Chris. I wanted to hear his kind voice and tell him where I was and what I was doing, but he’d made it very clear that he would call me when he was ready. I got out my PalmPilot and found Hadley’s number in London. I dialed but there was no answer, just a message and the voice of her husband, Nigel, in his clipped, British accent, asking me to “kindly” leave a message. I tried Dustin in San Francisco. No one home there, either. I tried her cell phone. It went immediately to voice mail.
I flopped back on the bed, wanting desperately to talk to someone, to tell someone I was here. I thought of my mom. Until recently, she was often the person I turned to when I needed a chat. But what would she think if she knew I was looking for him? The note I’d left at her house simply said I’d call her soon. But I couldn’t do that now; I felt like I was cheating on her. Yet I knew being here was right. Finding my father was something I needed to do.
Then I found myself sitting up, picking up the phone again and dialing a number I barely knew, finding the digits from somewhere in the haze of my brain.
“Hola,” someone answered.
“Is Alexa there?”
“Un momento.”
I stood and walked across the room, unsure what I was going to say to her, unsure why I was even calling except that I felt like talking to a friend, and she had appeared in my mind.
Alexa answered.
“Hi, it’s Billy.”
“Hey, Billy,” she said, and she actually sounded pleased to hear from me. “I’m glad you called. You won’t believe what I did today.”
“What?”
“I started working on a business plan for the PR firm I want to start.”
“That’s wonderful!”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see. After the last time I saw you, I decided to ask for help, and I found this woman here in my community who started her own law firm, so she’s walking me through what needs to be done.”
“Wow. I am so impressed.” I held myself back from saying that I was proud, too. Proud of Alexa and the way she was turning her firing into something better for her life. It was exactly was I was trying to do. Take what the frog had brought into my life and make the best of it.
Alexa and I talked for twenty minutes about her business plan and ideas, her fear that she would never find capital to start the thing, but how she was happier working on this than she’d ever been.
“There’s just so much that has to happen if this is going to work,” she said.
“You’ll do it.”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to try. Enough about me. What’s up with you?”
“I’m actually in Colorado.”
I gave Alexa an abbreviated version of my decision to look for my dad, leaving out the fact that Chris had tossed me out of the house.
“My God,” Alexa said. “This is huge for you. Shit, I’ve never even met my father.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nah, he was some white guy my mom dated many moons ago. When he found out she was pregnant, he took off.”
“Have you ever wanted to look for him?”
“No. He’s not my father-not in any true sense. My mother and my aunt and these kids over here are my family. But you grew up with your dad, right?”
“For seven years.” Seven very short years. Years that were decades ago now. Suddenly, this seemed a very rash, bad idea to be in this town.
“Billy, you’ve got to give it a shot,” Alexa said, as if sensing my doubts. “You’ve obviously been wondering for a very long time, and now you’re there. It’s what you’ve got to do.”
Her words reminded me of Odette’s. And they were both right. It was time for me to take some action.
chapter fifteen
T he next morning, I called work and asked for Lizbeth. “I won’t be in again today,” I said. “And I’m not sure about tomorrow either.” I was supposed to fly home the next morning, and wasn’t sure what time I could make it to work.
“Still sick?” Lizbeth asked.
“Mmm,” I murmured.
“Well, Roslyn wants to talk to you.”
I coughed. “Lizbeth, I can’t right now. Can you just let her know I’ll try to be in there by tomorrow afternoon? Thanks.”
I hung up before she could say much else, and looked at my watch-9:50 a.m. My father should be at the store now, and Cover to Cover would be open in ten minutes.
At five minutes after ten, I pushed open the door of Cover to Cover with shaking hands. Just like last night, the door creaked and then a lilting strain of classical music washed over me. But this time, Kenny wasn’t standing at the desk to the left. This time, it was my father.
He looked even older than he had in the picture on his Web site. His hair was thinner and more gray. His chest looked slightly sunken, and he was shorter than I’d remembered. But his clothes were youthful-jeans and a brown T-shirt. His skin was tan.
He was studying something at the countertop computer, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. “Morning,” he said, still looking at the screen. Then he looked up, directly at me.
“Good morning,” I said. I felt ridiculous, wishing my own father a formal good day.
“Can I…” But his words died away. He took off the reading glasses.
The classical music came to the end of the song, and silence filled the store. It was the loudest silence I’d ever heard. I struggled to find words to speak. My father seemed to be having the same problem.
“Billy?” He said my name quietly, with a question mark at the end, but there it was. I felt jolted. How did the asshole who’d taken off recognize his youngest, the girl he hadn’t seen since she was seven?
I nodded.
“Come in. Please.” He hurried around the counter toward me. I drew back in surprise.
He halted. “I’m sorry.”
I was still too shocked to say anything.
A door slammed at the back of the store, and a woman came into the front room. Lillian. Her hair wasn’t as frizzy as I’d thought. She also wore jeans over her wide hips and a thin, light blue sweater. “Brandon, we need to fix that sink again,” she said. “Oh, hello there,” she called when she saw me.
“Good morning.” These seemed to be the only words I knew how to utter.
Lillian looked from Brandon to me and back again.
“Lil,” he said. “This is my daughter, Billy.”
Outside the store, in the back, there was a small cement courtyard occupied by an iron table painted mint-green and a overabundance of flowers and plants.
“Lillian loves gardening,” my father said. He gestured to the table.
I nodded. I was still having trouble finding words. I hadn’t expected him to be so welcoming. I didn’t think I would have the odd desire to fall into his arms and ask why he left. The courtyard was shaded and cool, the sky sunny and bright blue above us. The place was calming, and that made the entire experi
ence come into sharper focus-this is my father, my dad, he’s right here.
We both sat. I pushed my chair back from the table a few inches. At last, my mind started working again. “How did you recognize me?”
He smiled. It was a rueful smile that sent deep creases from his eyes, down his tanned cheeks. “I wish I could tell you I’d always know one of my girls.”
I bristled at the term “my girls.” How dare he?
“But,” he continued, “the truth is that I’ve kept my eyes on you all.”
“Your eyes?” I crossed my legs, and wrapped my arms tight around my body.
“Years ago, I paid someone to find you.”
“Do you mean you had someone watch us? Like a detective or something?”
He nodded.
I huffed. “I can’t believe you. You take off, you don’t give my mother a cent of money, and yet you had us watched?”
His eyes roamed my face. He opened his mouth to speak, but right then Lillian came outside with two teacups on saucers. They were mismatched, and one of the saucers was chipped. The saucer rattled as she placed one cup in front of me.
“Do you take sugar?” Lillian said. Her voice seemed a little high, and I realized she was nervous for her husband.
“No, thank you.”
Lillian sent my father a tight, optimistic smile.
He met her eyes. “Thanks, Lil.”
“I’ll just be in the shop.” She gestured toward the store.
The screened door slapped as she went inside, a summer sound. I took a sip of the tea. Soothing Chamomile, it said on the tag attached to the tea bag. I hoped it worked like gangbusters.
“I really had no right to keep tabs on you girls,” my father said.
“No, you didn’t.”
He grimaced. “It wasn’t until about eight years ago that I did it. I’d just married Lillian, and she had changed my life.” He smiled a little now. “She changed me for the better. But I knew I couldn’t contact you three. I’d given up that chance a long time ago. I felt like I had no right. And yet I had to know if you were okay. So I had someone find you and let me know. And I got to see how you looked now that you’d grown up.”
“You had them take pictures of us?”
He gave a short, chagrined nod. He leaned back as if afraid of a blow.
I shuddered a little and looked away from him. I couldn’t help but wonder where such pictures had been taken. Eight years ago, I was spending most of my time trolling the bars and nursing hangovers. Possibly, there was a photo of me coming out of a drugstore with a massive bottle of Advil. Or maybe later, one of Chris and me. I got a pang of regret with the thought. I wished desperately that he was here with me now, helping me navigate this conversation with this strange man who was responsible for my existence.
“I apologize,” my father said. “I shouldn’t have invaded your privacy. It’s unforgivable, but I just needed to make sure you were all right. I knew I didn’t deserve to ever talk to you girls or be a part of your life, but I had to know. Can you understand that?”
Like I had to know about you, I thought. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Not when you didn’t care whether we were all right for so long,” I said.
“I always cared.”
I barked out a disbelieving laugh.
“Billy, it’s true. I was an ungrateful shit. I was a lousy husband and father, but I always, always cared.”
I opened my mouth, ready to let him have it.
He held up his hand as if to stop my protests. “Please. I know it didn’t seem like it, but that’s really true.”
I crossed my arms. “You have a very odd way of showing it.”
My father pushed his teacup away, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. His eyes searched my face again. “You’ve grown up beautifully. Your mother did an excellent job.”
Something about the softness of his voice put a hard feeling in my throat that I had to swallow down. “Why did you leave?” I said, my tone just as soft.
He sighed. He looked down. After a long moment, he spoke again. “I was having a very difficult time after your mother and I got married. We hadn’t planned to get married, but she was pregnant.” He paused and sat back. “I’m sorry, did you know that?”
“Did I know that you got married because she was pregnant with Dustin? Yes, I did. And if you think I’m going to feel sorry for you…” I trailed off, shaking my head.
“No, absolutely not, but you asked, so I want to tell you why I did what I did.” He took a deep breath. “I wasn’t ready to get married. I was just starting out in my family’s business, and I was living in downtown Chicago and enjoying it tremendously. When your mom got pregnant with Dustin, that all screeched to a halt. I wanted to embrace our new life in the suburbs, but being the shallow person I was, I was always wishing I was somewhere else.”
“Then why did you have more kids?”
“Your mother wanted to. And I did, too. I loved Dustin, and I thought if we had more kids, maybe I would get used to being a family man and become content.”
I thought of the male names he’d given us all. “You were hoping for boys.”
He nodded. “I was a ridiculous fool, but yes. I was.”
“So you got two more girls, and then you decided to take off.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. I felt like I was doing nothing but making everyone miserable. Your mother wasn’t happy because I wasn’t happy. One day, I snapped. I just really snapped. I’d started drinking too much, and your mother complained about it, and…” He shook his head as if reliving the situation and still finding it hard to believe. “I was on my fifth whiskey of the night. Your mother asked me to stop. She was always very polite.” He made a wry laugh. “She was standing over me while I sat in front of the TV.”
I thought of the blue recliner that no one used but my father. It had sat there after he left, reminding us all of him. Finally, when we moved to the apartment by the hospital my mother gave it away.
“I was so angry at her,” my father continued. “I knew she was right, but I wanted the whiskey to take away the hard edges. I just wanted her to get away from me. So I stood and grabbed her. I screamed at her. I shook her. I wanted to hit her.” His words had been coming faster, but now he paused, and his shoulders dropped. “I knew that night that I had to leave. I thought if I left, she could be happy with someone else. She could move on.”
“You left her with no money!” I said this loudly, breaking the calm of the courtyard. I thought of my mother peering out windows, waiting for my father’s car. I thought of our move from the white house with the columns to that crappy apartment.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” he said. “I went to L.A.” He waved a hand, as if that part of his life was hard to explain. “I always meant to support you girls, but I lost a lot of money and led too high a lifestyle. There were other women. A lot of them.”
“You abandoned us. That’s nice. You were…what? Maybe doing drugs and partying with the gals, while we were scraping pennies together?”
He nodded again. “I-” his voice seemed to break. He cleared his throat. “It’s inconceivable to me now, that I acted how I did. I was such a mess. And after a while, I just erased the thoughts of my old life. I would hardly let myself think of you girls or your mom.”
“That’s it? You erased us?”
A gust of wind swept through the courtyard, ruffling his hair. “I’m not explaining this well. Probably because there is no good explanation for my behavior.”
“Apparently not.”
We sat, both of us staring at the table. My father drank from his teacup.
I lifted my face and looked at him. “Did I have anything to do with it?”
His gaze met mine; his eyebrows drew close together. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I was the last child, and I’ve always wondered if I somehow pushed you over the edge.”
“Oh, hell, Billy. No. Abso
lutely not. You were a wonderful, amazing little girl. You seem to be an amazing woman. It was me who was the problem. I hated myself back then. I hated myself when I left, too. In my own eyes, nothing could redeem me. I was horrible and I knew it, and I knew without a doubt that you girls were better off without me. Or at least I convinced myself that that was the case. It was only when I met Lillian about ten years ago that I stopped the booze and I stopped running through life. I was able to look at what I’d done, what I’d been like.”
“She seems nice,” I said grudgingly.
“She’s wonderful. She was my massage therapist in Los Angeles. That’s how we met.” He chuckled. “She got me to see what a jerk I was. She got me sober, which wasn’t easy. We moved out here six years ago, and opened up this store the next year…” His words died away. “I have to say this to you.” He paused and looked at me intently. “Billy, I am sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
I said nothing.
“An apology doesn’t help, does it?” he said.
“Not much.” I paused. “Maybe a little.”
I took a sip of tea, and I noticed him glancing at my hands.
“You’re married, right?” he asked.
The teacup rattled as I set it down. “I don’t know anymore.”
Somehow, someway, I ended up telling my father about Evan and that night at the party. The tale rushed from my mouth. Other than Chris, I’d told no one what I’d done, but I realized now that I needed a confessor. That such a person would be my deadbeat father was beyond bizarre and yet somehow strangely right.
He nodded while I talked, his expression one of rapt attention, but his face lacked judgment, which kept me talking.
“I can’t believe I did it,” I said, as I came to the end. “I’m so ashamed.”
“Shame and regret,” he said shaking his head a little. “They’re the most insidious of emotions. I know them all too well. And what I’ve learned is that eventually they’ll devour you if you let them.”
“I want to be devoured by them.”
“You want to be punished?”
The Night I got Lucky Page 17