Chapter 13
My father was a memory.
Twelve days. I was still counting. Across all twelve, I never persuaded myself that the man at the head of the table — the one who would have come down the stairs in the cardigan with his hands full of three different sections of the morning paper — was actually not coming down the stairs.
My head knew. My body wasn't catching up.
I took to lying to myself.
I told myself, in the morning, that today was going to be a manageable day. When I poured the coffee, I told myself it was the only thing on the agenda for the next three minutes, and the next three minutes were all I had to handle. In the shower, I told myself I was fine.
Sabrina helped.
She helped specifically and only when she was in the room with me.
The night before last, she was there until morning, and the stretch between her leaving for her apartment and me putting on a tie for the lawyer was a part of the day I didn't want to revisit.
The minute she left, I was back to it — being a son in a house his father wasn't in anymore.
At the service, they listed Henry Cross — spouse, parent, professional, survived by — and the latter struck me the most. Because what followed were four names in a line, and four names in a line simply couldn't bear the weight of what he truly was now.
He was more than that.
He was going to be my job to remember as more than that.
I was sitting in the chair I always sat in — to the right of my father's chair when he was sitting in his. Mom was sitting in his chair. The lawyer was at the foot of the table.
Cade was across from me, while Suzanne was in the kitchen.
The lawyer cleared his throat.
He read my dad’s will. He had a pen in his hand that he didn't use. He had a folder open in front of him, which he didn't look at much.
"To my wife, Vivienne…the house at…" He read the address. "And the contents thereof, and the property at…" He read the second address. "And the property at…" The third. "And the entirety of the residual estate…are bequeathed to you outright."
Mom’s hand didn't move on the table. Her hand was flat beside her coffee cup. The cup had a chip on the rim. I never noticed it until that minute.
The lawyer turned a page.
"To my stepson, Cade Nightingale — "
Mom's hand moved. It went onto Cade's wrist.
" — the entirety of the trust I established at the time of my marriage to Vivienne. The trust was modified twice in the intervening years, the most recent modification two years ago. The current value at the date of valuation is — " He read the number.
The number was significant.
Cade was looking at his own hand under Mom's. "He didn't have to do that."
His voice was even. Cade's voice was always even.
Mom said, "He did, Cade."
The lawyer turned another page. He looked at me.
"Mr. Cross, your father's last will and testament names you the chairman of Cross Real Estate Holdings, with full fiduciary responsibility and the controlling vote on the board."
The order of the words hit me before the sense of them did.
"Sorry," I said. "Could you read that again?"
He read it again.
I sat with it.
The chairmanship. The fiduciary responsibility. The controlling vote on the board. My father spent twenty-six years building Cross Real Estate Holdings, and at some point, in some recent revision of a document he probably hoped not to need for a long time, he decided to hand it to me.
To me.
I ran the foundation for ten years, reasonably well. Cross Real Estate Holdings was a company whose worst day was a building falling down.
I didn't ask for Cross Real Estate Holdings. He gave it to me anyway.
He gave me a company on his way out of the room.
The lawyer cleared his throat again. "Mr. Cross also asked that I deliver these."
He produced three envelopes. Cream paper. Heavy stock. Three names in my father's handwriting on the fronts.
Vivienne.
Cade.
Beau.
The handwriting was the same scrawl that had signed every birthday card he’d given me since I was five.
It was the handwriting on the back of the tag of a Christmas present that said: To my boy, from your old man.
Don't open until December 25 (unless your mother says otherwise).
It was the handwriting on the Post-it note he stuck to the inside of my luggage the first time I flew internationally without him — Call your mother on her time, not yours.
The lawyer handed Mom hers, and she held it against her chest with both hands.
He handed Cade his, and Cade slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket without opening it. He didn't look at it.
The lawyer handed me mine.
I held it.
The envelope was warm from the lawyer's hand.
I looked at my name, put the envelope in the inside pocket of my jacket. I needed some courage to read it without breaking down.
The lawyer asked if there were any questions. There weren't. He thanked us, stood, and gathered his folder, pen, and briefcase. Then he left.
The three of us stayed at the table.
"I'm going to read mine when I'm alone," Mom said.
"Same," Cade said.
"Yeah. Same." I nodded.
Mom reached across the table. She took my hand and Cade's. She held both and said nothing.
For the better part of two weeks, I told myself I had a mother, brother, Theo, and Suzanne. I had the people who showed up, and having them was as close to not being alone as I could get.
Suzanne came in from the kitchen with three fresh cups of coffee. She set one in front of Mom, Cade, and me. She squeezed Cade's shoulder and went back to the kitchen.
Cade picked up his coffee and looked at me across the table. "Porch."
I followed him out.
The porch was cold.
Cade leaned on the rail. He had his hands wrapped around the mug. "How are you doing?"
I held it in. "I'm not fine. I don't know if I'll ever be."
He nodded. "Good."
I looked at him. "Good?"
"That's the right answer, Beau. I've been waiting to hear you say something that was actually true since the funeral."
He took a sip of his coffee and kept his eyes on the yard.
We stood with the coffee.
Until that minute, I hadn't planned to tell him, but I did. "I think I might be in love."
He turned the whole way and looked at me. "What?"
"You heard me."
He seemed surprised. No"With who?"
"You remember the bartender."
He stared at me for a beat. "The bartender at the auction?"
"Yes."
"The one from the hospital with a little girl?"
"Yes."
He laughed loud, on the porch in the cold, the laugh more release than humor and more for me than him.
He shook his head. "Beau, how?"
"I don't know."
"How did you manage that?"
"I don't know, Cade."
He took a sip and looked at me.
"Does she know?"
"No."
"Does she feel the same?"
"I think so. It's harder for her. She has more to lose. She has a kid, the whole situation of what it is to be a single mother, and getting it wrong with me is — getting it wrong with me costs her something it doesn't cost me. So she's being careful."
He nodded.
"But with this — " I gestured at the house, the cold, the world — "with Dad. I think I'm going to tell her."
He looked at me for a long second. "You do that."
He turned back to the rail and drank his coffee.
I drove home with the envelope in the inside pocket of my jacket, pulled into the garage, sat in the car, and didn't get out.
The envelope was against my ribs.
I pulled out my phone and texted her.
Beau
I need to see you.
The dots came up immediately.
Sabrina
When?
Beau
Now?
A pause. A longer pause. The dots came up, disappeared, and came up again.
Sabrina
I have to drop Bonnie at piano. After that, I'm off for the night. Bonnie has a sleepover later too.
Beau
What time does the lesson start?
Sabrina
Five.
Beau
I'll come get you both. It's the fastest way for me to see you.
A pause.
Sabrina
Fine. The lesson is at Marlowe Music on 81st.
I went upstairs, showered, and changed.
I put the unread envelope on the nightstand by my bed.
When I finished, I drove to her building.
Sabrina came out with Bonnie.
Bonnie had on a small cardigan over a school dress, a music folder under one arm, and her water bottle in the other hand. The ponytail was, against all odds, fully fixed.
Her eyes found me through the windshield.
She stopped.
She looked up at her mother. Sabrina looked down at her and nodded.
I got out and opened the back door for her.
Bonnie put her music folder on the seat and climbed in. She buckled herself in — eight years old and competent at the buckle the way I wasn't at fifteen, and Sabrina raised that kid, and the kid was the proof.
I closed the door and went around to the driver's side.
Sabrina was already in the passenger seat.
I started the car. She didn't look at me. She looked through the windshield with her hands in her lap. She had on the jeans I liked on her, which were all of them, but specifically these.
I didn't say hi.
She didn't say hi.
That was the agreement.
Bonnie did it for both of us, from the back seat, at the volume of a person who'd waited forty-five quiet seconds with her water bottle and music folder.
"Hi, Beau."
"Hi, Bonnie."
"My mom said you were picking us up."
"I am."
"Are you coming inside Marlowe?"
"No, baby. I'm going to drop you off, and your mom and I are going to go."
"Where are you going?"
I looked at Sabrina, and she looked at me.
It was a half-second look. Just a half-second.
She turned to Bonnie. "We're going to the grocery store, baby."
Bonnie made a face. "Boring."
"Yes."
"Why does Beau have to go to the grocery store with you?"
I clutched at my heart in the rearview. "Bonnie. Is your mother lying about me again?"
"Probably," Bonnie said.
She was already onto the next thing. The next thing was the piece she was learning.
"Beau?"
"Yeah," I answered.
"I'm learning a piece. It’s by Debussy,” she said, a little brighter now.
"That's amazing."
"Reverie. Have you heard of it?"
"I've heard of it." My reply made her smile.
"It's pretty, but it's hard. There are these — there are these parts where you have to do two things with your hands at the same time, and the things are different, and your hands have to know they're different and not — " she made a gesture I could see in the rearview — "do the same thing."
"That sounds like a normal day for you."
She laughed.
"Beau, Pickles peed on Mrs. Park's coat."
"Oh no."
"Yes. She hung it on the hook by the door because it was raining. He went up the leg of the coat where she couldn't see him, and he peed on the inside of the lining."
"Was Mrs. Park upset?"
"Yes. She said the worst word I've ever heard her say."
"What was the word?"
"I can't say it. My mom's in the car."
"You can write it on paper for me later if you want."
"Mmm…I might."
Without turning her head, Sabrina said, "Beau, stop encouraging her."
At a red light, I looked at her, and she was looking at me.
The look between us belonged to two people who never got alone in a room without ending up with their clothes off, now sitting in a car with an eight-year-old in the back seat and very aware they wouldn’t be in that car for much longer.
Bonnie was talking about Schubert — Mr. Marlowe's dog.
We kept looking at each other.
The light went green. I turned my head.
At the next red light, we looked again.
By the third one, my hand came off the gearshift and settled on her thigh — over her jeans, the heel of my palm just resting there, my thumb making no movement, my face not turning toward her.
She didn't move.
The studio was on the second floor of a brownstone that had a pizza place on the ground floor and a hand-painted sign in the front window that said Marlowe Music in a font somebody loved in 1974.
I pulled up at the curb.
"Bonnie. I'll be right back."
"Bye, Mom."
"Bye, baby. I love you. Be good. Listen to Mr. Marlowe. Don't argue with him about Brahms again."
"I was right."
"Be good anyway."
I got out, went around to her side, and opened her door. She climbed out with her folder against her chest. I closed the door behind her and walked her to the front of the building. I held the heavy door open.
"Bye, Beau."
"Bye, Bonnie."
She disappeared up the stairs.
I went back to the car, closed the door, turned in my seat, and looked at Sabrina.
She looked back.
We didn't need to say anything.
I pulled away from the curb.
I didn't make it far.
The block was residential, brownstones on both sides. There was a stretch of curb between two parked cars, half a length more than I needed. I took it. I shut off the engine.
She had her hand on the door before the engine was all the way off.
"Backseat."
"Yes."
I climbed over the console. She was laughing as she came over from the passenger side, and the sound of it was the best thing that had happened to me in days.
I made it to the back seat.
The Range Rover had tinted back windows. In my head, I thanked whoever at the dealership had the foresight to push the option.
She came over the console and landed against me. She got on top of me in the same motion, her knees on either side of my thighs, her hands flat on my chest.
The laughing stopped.
I kissed her.
I had a bartender on top of me in the back seat of a car parked between two strangers' cars, and I wanted ten minutes without interruptions.
She kissed me back.
Her mouth opened under mine. Her hands went to my belt.
My mouth went to her neck. My hand found her hip and worked the waistband of her jeans down — she pushed up from her knees to help me.
I had her jeans down past her hips, and she had my belt undone.
We didn't have enough room in the back seat, not enough time in the day, but we didn’t care.
I lifted her by the hips, and she came down on me.
A sound caught against my collarbone — short and rough.
I held the back of her head, and she moved.
The seat creaked.
I had a hand at her hip, and one at the back of her head, her hair loose over my knuckles, her forehead against mine, and the back seat of a car parked in a residential block in the city was, for ten minutes, the only place in the world.
And I let myself forget.