Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
I t took another two days to reach Placida, Florida. The quaint seaside village was reminiscent of Nantucket but with a very different color scheme and entirely different types of people. It was all turquoise water, bright yellow boathouses, and a humidity that felt thick as a milkshake. It seemed like most everything was on the verge of falling apart: rusty door hinges, rust-lined window frames, leaning roofs. Lucas pulled Gale’s car into a gas station, and Gale got out and watched as a very old man crept from the gas pumps and into the little store. Immediately, sweat billowed up on the back of her neck and her upper lip. Her hair was big and fluffy.
This is where my father and Bethany Cicero came after the accident.
Is this where they brought Lilian? Is this where my poor twin sister was raised?
Lucas filled the tank, and then the two of them entered the gas station to buy vitamin water and stand in the air-conditioning for a few minutes. Now that they’d reached Placida, it was unclear exactly what to do.
Lucas pulled up Johnny Samson’s Facebook profile for the third time since they’d left Nantucket. Gale peered at the “current” profile picture, which Johnny hadn’t updated since 2014. He was photographed behind the steering wheel of a speedboat, and his tanned skin had turned to leather, and his hair was bleached from the Florida sun. He was alone. Smiling. The water on either side of him was Florida’s turquoise. For occupation, Johnny had listed “repairman” with all lowercase letters, but it didn’t say if he was affiliated with anyone here in Placida. It also didn’t say if he was married or single. The posts were all older than eight years and included: “we need another Pats Super Bowl,” and “go out to support Bob’s Donut Emporium to support Placida High School volleyball, fifty cent donuts a pop.” It was hard for Gale to imagine that this was her father. But everyone had a father. You didn’t get to choose.
The man behind the counter at the gas station was hunched over and counting coins. The speaker was playing a song from the late nineties. It felt as though they’d gone back in time again.
“I think we should go to the records office first, " Lucas said. “They might have an address for Johnny.
Gale wasn’t sure how much she trusted a tiny town like this to reveal its secrets via the records office. In a moment of brash confidence, she took Lucas’s phone and strode up to the man behind the counter. She smiled and waited for him to raise his chin and say hello.
“Hi there,” she said back, flipping Lucas’s screen out to show the most recent photograph of Johnny Samson. “Can you tell me where this man lives?”
There was a glint of recognition in the man’s eyes. “Off Galway Avenue,” he said. “Blue house. Red shutters. Can’t miss it.”
Gale’s heart felt aflame. She had to stop herself from jumping up and down. “Thank you! Thank you so much.” Before she forgot, she threw some of Lucas’s weird marzipan candies on the counter and paid for them with cash. She led Lucas back into the humming humidity and popped one in her mouth. She felt triumphant. What if we’re only a few minutes away from meeting my father? What will I say?
Gale decided to drive the rest of the way to Johnny’s house. Lucas looked up instructions and discovered the drive was still another ten minutes. Johnny’s house was three blocks from a public beach called Boca Grande, and Gale suddenly imagined herself staying with him another couple of days, walking the beach with her father, learning about him. There were so many things a father was meant to teach his child—how to put on a spare tire, make a killer steak on the grill, and how to heal from the trauma of life.
She was so excited that she didn’t allow her to imagine that Johnny might not be there.
The blue house on the corner of Galway and Ferguson had recently been painted and stood proudly beneath a Florida sunlight that would surely eat away at it over the coming months. A wooden rocking horse was on the front porch with a few toys strewn around it, and Gale thought, maybe Lilian is here. Maybe she has a grandchild!
Gale cut the engine. Lucas touched her hand before she could tear out of the car and said, “Let’s take it easy. We can’t storm the castle gates and expect anything good to come of it.”
Gale laughed nervously. Lucas was a worrier. But he also understood the nuance of history and how to use that understanding to ensure you didn’t make future mistakes.
Gale locked eyes with Lucas. She wondered if Lucas would want to stay with her here in Florida; if he’d want to get to know Johnny now that they’d discovered him.
She decided to say it: “You know, you’d be welcome here in Florida.”
Lucas bowed his head and smiled softly. “I don’t belong in Florida.”
“Who belongs anywhere?” Gale asked. But she knew she was only speaking of herself. She’d left Providence. She’d felt kicked out of her mother’s place. And she hadn’t been “picked” by her father to move to Florida all those years ago.
Again, she wondered: how did he choose which of us to take?
The question had a tendency to keep her up late. Last night, she and Lucas had had separate hotel rooms, and she’d sat at the edge of her bed and stared into space for a good three hours as her heart thudded and her fingers shook. A part of her had yearned to trace the path back to Lucas’s bedroom and burrow in his bed. But it wasn’t appropriate.
Now, Gale got out of the car and slammed it shut behind her. She heard Lucas follow suit. They met on the sidewalk and strode up the walkway to the big red door, which had been recently painted to match the shutters. It was exactly as the gas station worker had described.
Gale raised her fist and knocked. The knock rang hollow through the house. Somewhere deep inside, someone was watching television. She heard the rush of water from a faucet. There was life inside this house.
Next came the sound of quick footsteps. Gale hardly had time to breathe again before the door opened. Air-conditioning rippled out and across Gale’s face.
A woman peered out at her. She was probably fifteen years younger than Gale, with dark hair and eyes outlined black with charcoal.
“Hello?” the woman asked in a southern drawl.
She’s all Florida, Gale thought.
“Hi. Um.” Gale shifted uneasily. This was definitely not Lilian. “My name is Gale Dobbs.”
The woman continued to blink at her with a curious smile on her face. It was clear now that the television show was a child’s. Gale remembered putting her twins in front of the TV when she needed to do something—cook dinner or clean the bathroom. It had been a free babysitter. But she’d always wondered, am I destroying their mental health? Am I destroying their intelligence? Am I a bad mother?
“Can I help you with something?” the woman asked.
Gale throbbed with sudden fear. What was she doing here?
Lucas piped up to save her. “We’re looking for a gentleman by the name of Johnny Samson. Do you know that name?”
The woman furrowed her brow. A shadow fell over her face. “I know that name, all right.”
Gale had a bad feeling in her stomach.
“Do you know where we could find him?” Lucas asked.
The woman seemed unsure of what to do. She cut her eyes from Gale to Lucas and back again. From behind her came a cartoon crash followed by the sound of a cartoon spring. It reminded Gale of old Looney Toons episodes she’d watched when her mother had a migraine.
Because she had nothing else to lose, Gale decided to come out with the truth. “Johnny is my father. I need to talk to him.” She hesitated. “But it’s delicate. I’ve never met him before.”
The woman’s hard expression melted. She opened the door wider and cut her teeth into her lower lip. “Why don’t you come inside?”
Gale and Lucas sat in the shadows of the woman’s living room. Because the air-conditioning was up full blast, the leather sofa was cool and nice, and Gale swept her fingers back and forth on the material and tried not to think about how weird this was. In retrospect, Lucas’s idea to go to the records office first had probably been much better than just knocking on a stranger’s door. What’s gotten into me? This isn’t a film. This is real life.
The woman went to check on the child in the next room and turned down the volume on the cartoons. She returned with two glasses of what looked like lemonade with ice. Gale wrapped her hands around the glass as though she were a child and assessed the woman’s face once more. Something about it was familiar. But she couldn’t gauge why.
Lucas was brave enough and smart enough to hazard a guess. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
The woman sat across from them. “Okay.”
“Are you at all related to Bethany Cicero?” Lucas asked.
Gale remembered now. The woman before them looked a great deal like the brunette who stood in the crook of her father’s arm in Lucas’s photograph.
The woman smiled. “Bethany’s my mother.”
Gale’s spine straightened. Does this mean she’s my half sister?
“Everyone says we look alike,” the woman went on, flipping her long brunette hair behind her shoulder. “Even now, we get mistaken for sisters, which she loves. She’s in her late fifties.”
“Does she still live here in town?” Lucas asked.
“She does,” the woman affirmed. “Just ten minutes’ walk from here. She babysits my son on most weekdays, which is a blessing. But I’m off today. Dean has a cold, and I don’t want to get Mom sick again. Dean gave her every illness under the sun last year.”
“The life of having young children,” Gale remembered, her voice quiet.
The woman folded her hands on her lap and grimaced. It seemed she’d just remembered something.
“What’s your name?” Lucas asked. It was beginning to feel awkward not to know.
“Roxie. And yours?”
Lucas introduced himself. Gale said her name quietly after him.
“You sort of look like him,” Roxie said to Gale. “Like Johnny. At least, you look like Johnny in the old photographs of Johnny.”
Roxie got up and walked to the corner cabinet, where she found an aged photo album. She flipped through to show photographs of Johnny and Bethany back when they’d first reached Florida. Gale took the album and gazed down at the images from the eighties. They were Technicolor. Bethany wore a black bikini and was perpetually as tan as the daughter of Italian immigrants could get. Johnny was photographed repairing boats and automobiles, his hands greasy, his smile loose. Sometimes he smoked cigarettes, and the photographs were foggy with smoke.
Gale realized before Roxie had a chance to explain. Gale raised her chin and said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Roxie sucked in her cheeks and sat back down. “He died about four years ago. It was sudden. Cancer.”
Gale nodded and gazed back down at the photograph of this handsome and dashing man. The Nantucket golden boy who’d stolen her mother’s heart and then torn it to shreds. He’d been taken from this world without her knowing. How would she mourn him without ever knowing him?
“Is he your father, too?” Gale asked.
“Gosh, no,” Roxie said with a small laugh. “Johnny and my mother broke up in the eighties. They were a volatile couple. They were crazy for each other, but there was too much darkness in their past. They stayed friends forever, though. He died holding her hand.”
“You know about how he woke up from the coma?” Gale asked.
“My mother was right beside him,” Roxie said. “I’ve heard the story thousands of times.”
Gale turned to look at Lucas. His face was difficult to read.
Suddenly Gale remembered something. Bethany hadn’t thought she could conceive. That’s why they took Lilian to Florida.
“Did you ever meet my sister Lilian?” Gale asked.
Roxie furrowed her brow. “Lilian?”
“Maybe she went by Lily?” Gale asked. “Or maybe my father and your mother gave her a different name when they brought her to Florida. I’m not sure.”
Roxie’s eyes were stormy. “I don’t know anyone named Lily.”
“Your mother never mentioned her?” Gale asked.
“No.” Roxie crossed her arms tightly over her chest. She looked at Gale as though she were storm clouds on the horizon. She wasn’t yet sure if she needed to be worried. “Listen, Gale. My mother and I are happy here. We loved Johnny with our whole hearts. We did right by him. But whatever you’re looking for, it’s not here.”
Gale let her shoulders slump. She was beginning to feel as though she were in a free fall.
But Lucas chimed in before she fully fell apart. “Do you think we could talk to your mother?”
Roxie folded her lips. She seemed unwilling to cooperate.
“We promise not to bother you again,” Gale offered. She sighed, then added, “I’ve felt an emptiness my entire life. I’m trying to rectify that. I’m trying to answer questions I’ve had about my mother and my existence since I was a girl.”
Roxie still didn’t look convinced. She pulled at her long hair. Gale understood she wanted to protect her mother. What did she care about Gale’s past?
“All right,” Roxie said. “I’ll give her a call and see if she’s home. But I’m going to come with you.”
It was implied that Roxie wanted to watch them closely. She wanted to make sure they weren’t trying to scheme or con her mother. Gale marveled that anyone could think she and Lucas were capable of something like that. But, she supposed, anyone was capable of anything. She’d lived long enough to understand that.