Chapter Sixty-Four Rae
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Rae
IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT, AND I feel like doing nothing.
I sit down in front of my massive, elaborate book nook, grab my tweezers and glue, and wait for the bad feelings to subside the way they always do when I get working.
It doesn’t. I can’t.
It’s not doing the trick.
I stare at my hands. There’s no hiding anymore or distracting myself from the mess I’ve made of my life.
Especially not when everything about this damn model reminds me of Grant.
The little library nook I’ve added with its jacquard-painted wall and the bench I made after our lunch excursion to the club.
I sink back in my chair, eyes shut hard against the feelings trying to swamp me—again.
Pretty sure I’ve said no more times in the last two days since the retreat than I have the entire time I’ve worked for Sugar.
It felt really good until it occurred to me that I’m not actually that into HR.
I’m tired of being here for people. Tired.
Just tired. Then there’s Samantha, who finally reached out and explained that she and her mystery man gamed on her computer.
That’s why she brought it home with her.
She’s still fired, though. It was a rule she ignored, and I get it.
The guy has since completely ghosted her. Jackass.
I drop my forehead on my folded arms. I’m wallowing. I know that. But I can’t seem to find the silver lining, the flip side, the tiny spark of hope that’s always kept me going. It’s not there.
My phone chirps. I ignore it. It goes again. Again. God, can’t anyone leave me alone?
I pick it up and read.
Hannah: Have you heard from Dad?
Me: No.
Hannah: Are you home?
Me: Yes.
Less than a minute later, there’s a knock at my door.
I type: Is that you?
“Yes, you ding-dong!” Otty yells. “Open the damn door!”
I trudge over, unlock it, and before I’ve gotten it all the way open, my sisters are shoving their way inside. “Let’s go,” says Hannah in her bossy mom voice.
“What? Where?”
“Dad’s.” From the way Otty sinks onto the world’s smallest sofa, I can tell she’s been drinking.
“Get up, Otty! No lazing around!” Hannah turns to me. “She’s had three edibles. I can’t make her worry about this, and we need to be worried.”
“About what?” I am, of course, immediately worried.
“Shoes on. Grab the key to Dad’s. I’ll explain while we drive.”
I throw pants, shoes, and a coat on over my Sweeney Todd T-shirt, grab Otty by the arm, and follow Hannah out the door.
“I went by the house,” she tells me as we take off down the quiet street. Otty, as usual, has piled into the back. I’m in front, and let me tell you, the minivan is nasty. Every seat is crusted with some kind of crumb. I’m hoping it’s Cheerios.
“Is that throw-up?” I point to a stain on the dashboard.
“Of course not.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, Rae, do I? Let’s solve one mystery at a time, okay?”
“Fine.” Annoyed now, I turn to look out the window.
“So, Dad was home. Or at least his car was there. Lights on.”
I check the time. It’s only 9:30 p.m.
“Mystery car was there.”
“Running lines, then?”
“Maybe, but he didn’t answer when I knocked.”
Annoyance gives way to my first real niggle of worry. I check the vitals app.
“Why didn’t you go in? His heart rate’s up. He could be on the floor.”
“Fallen and he can’t get up!” yells Otty from the back.
“Exactly!”
“I lost my key.” Hannah’s driving fast, taking corners like the F1 racer she once dreamed of being. “That’s why we needed yours.”
Funny, I can’t think of a single fast-paced job Hannah didn’t fantasize about at least once when we were kids.
“Where’d you lose it?” Otty asks.
“What part of lost don’t you understand?”
“I got mine, Otty. Remember?” I hold up my key chain. “Besides, there’s always the Boyfriend Window.”
Hannah snorts. “Have you seen that branch recently? It doesn’t look strong enough to hold one of my kids, much less me. I’m a lot bigger than I was back then. Nobody wants me in the hospital.”
“Amen,” says Otty.
The car slows as Hannah turns into the quiet, wooded street we grew up on, past the sedate brick Colonials. Our split-level is in dire need of renovation, but I love it the way you love something you can’t imagine ever living without.
This is home. As far as I’m concerned, Dad will always live here. He and this house are symbiotic, or whatever the word is that means they need each other to survive.
Hannah starts quietly singing “Home” from The Wiz under her breath, and unlike when I sing, her voice sounds amazing.
Otty joins her from the back seat, her harmony pitch-perfect despite the edibles.
I get goose bumps.
“Lights are out now,” Hannah says as she shuts off the engine.
Worry washes over me, so familiar I barely notice it. “No porch light, no bed light, no TV. That car’s still there.”
Tension fizzles through my body as we topple outside. I’ve never seen it this dark. Not once. At the top of the short flight of stairs, I look at both my sisters, insert my key in the lock, turn it once, twice, shove at the door, and—
“Ooof.”
It won’t budge. I turn the knob and try again. Nothing. I fiddle with my key, rattle the knob, pull the key out, and do it all again, and then I’m banging at the door with both hands. It’s the dead bolt. And we all know that key was lost years ago.
“Dad? Are you in there?” Hannah screams. Our fists barely make a sound on the thick wood. “Dad!”
No response. No movement. He has to be home if his car’s here. Maybe, maybe he’s at rehearsal or something, but Hannah says the lights were on earlier. This is a nightmare.
“Let’s go around back.”
Shaking, I put my phone on flashlight mode and start down the steps, picturing Dad on the bathroom floor, unable to move. If we can’t get in the basement door, I’m calling 911.
We’re halfway across the yard when the front porch light comes on. The door swings open. As one, we fly back to the porch.
“Hannah? That you?”
“Dad? What’s going on?” Relief pours through me as we retrace our steps around the house to the front. “Are you okay?”
“Rae? What are you girls doing here?”
“What’s going on, Dad?” I hear that I’m yelling. I just can’t seem to rein it in.
“What? You’re all here?”
Our steps slow as we near the front stoop. Even in the crappy light of the single bulb, I can tell there’s something off about the way he’s standing, half inside, half out, and he’s wearing the holiday robe. Again.
“Holiday robe?” mumbles Otty, too low for Dad to hear.
“Yeah. It’s weird.”
Hannah sniffs. “Is he burning a fire in there?”
I smell it too. Woodsmoke, like when we used to have fires around Christmas. It was a rare luxury because wood cost money and didn’t actually heat the house.
“Dad?”
“Kiddos!” He smiles, wide and fake.
We make it halfway up the steps before it becomes clear that he’s not going to move out of our way to let us into the house.
“Come by for a late-night snack?” Why’s he being so weird?
“A snack, Dad?”
“No. No snack!” yells Otty. “We were worried.”
Hannah and I exchange a look. The concern I’ve felt for Dad these past few weeks shifts. Is this dementia? Please, please, please let it not be dementia.
“Aw, well, you girls are really so sweet, but I was just—”
“You’ve got to tell them, Nate,” a woman’s voice says from over Dad’s shoulder.
We watch wide-eyed as she comes into view.
“Ms. Barcom-Tancredi?” we all three whisper.
“Heh. Yeah. Well, you can probably call me Laura now.”
Nope. Not happening. I will absolutely never be able to call her anything but Ms. Barcom-Tancredi.
Dad deflates from his weird defensive posture and turns sideways to let us through. Ironically, now that he’s inviting us into the house, none of us seems all that excited to enter.
“So, you’re fine, then.”
“I’m good.” He glances back at Ms. Barcom-Tancredi and smiles. When she smiles back at him, emotion wells up inside me, so strong that I can’t quite catch my breath for a few seconds.
Maybe it’s shock? Or maybe, maybe seeing my sweet father look truly happy for the first time since Mom died has made me see just how hard it’s been.
Not just for us. For him too.
“Dad.”
He looks at me.
“How did you and my English teacher meet?” My favorite teacher. The teacher who let me eat in her classroom and brought sandwiches when I didn’t have time to make them for myself.
“We’re doing Cabaret together. She’s amazing as Fr?ulein Schneider.”
“We hope you’ll come to the performance next month!” Ms. Barcom-Tancredi throws into the mix.
“Hey, Rae! You’ll love this part! So, I tried out your app, Honey,” my dad says.
“Sugar.”
“Right, well, Laura was on it, and we were a ninety-eight percent match. I clicked on her, and she said yes. We auditioned together on our first date, and, well… the rest is herstory.”
“Ourstory,” adds Ms. Barcom-Tancredi, smiling at Dad.
Hannah surreptitiously squeezes my hand. I squeeze back.
“Want a hot chocolate?” Dad asks, as if this were a regular Friday night and not the night we discovered that Dad has an actual life. Not only that, but he’s safe and healthy, and his heart’s probably just dandy.
“I want vodka,” says Hannah.
“Don’t have any of that, honey.”
Otty asks, “Edibles?”
“Well, we were about to go to bed.”
“Oh, no. I’m out.” I step back, bash into the still-open screen door, and catch myself on the frame. “We need to split.”
“Yep.” Hannah’s shoving at me to move out of her way so we can get out of this place right this moment.
“What? Why?” Otty’s clueless.
“You don’t have to go, girls!”
“You know what, we’ll talk soon!” I say over my shoulder.
“Want to come for coffee in the morning?” Dad’s grinning when he yells out the door.
“I’ll make sure to be gone!” Ms. Barcom-Tancredi calls from behind him.
“We’re good!” I yell as Hannah and I each grab one of Otty’s arms and run like hell.