Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
R EENIE WANTS TO READ THE SCRIPT, SO I GIVE HER my laptop. We’re sitting side by side in the backyard looking out at the potato field through the ivy arbor. Ruby’s brought out a box of beads, and we’re making bracelets. “You did a great job last night,” I tell her.
“I did,” she says. We are in full agreement.
She’s stringing beads together in an order that can only make sense to her. Blue, then blue, then green, then clear. Mine is in an alternating pattern of three beads per color, and I think of Louis from the pier with his string bracelets that are nothing at all. And Dan wears them anyway, little bits of nothing that are everything.
I watch Reenie out of the corner of my eye. I watch for a smile on page nineteen when they meet. I watch for her hand to grip her heart at the end.
The main characters in this script see each other for the first time in a hotel lobby. Their eyes meet and there’s a spark between them. I think this spark will be conveyed by a tight camera angle and a ping, some kind of music. It’s insta-attraction, but not insta-love. I’ve never felt an immediate ping. I try to remember my first impression of Dan, and I just remember him being highly focused on photographing a hawk for no reason. He was handsome and disarming in his directness, but I did not feel the ping. “What’s funny?” Reenie asks.
“Did I laugh?”
“You did.” She smiles at me.
“Dan’s always losing his driver’s license.” I turn to her to see if I’ve given too much away, if she can see on my face that this is a piece of information I gleaned just before I had sex with her son. Twice. Her eyes give me an all clear. “I can’t imagine doing that more than once. I mean, I’d just make a point to put it back in my wallet.”
“You’d think,” she says. “He’s all heart. And I think that somehow his focus on the beautiful thing distracts him from the practical thing.”
“Well, he’s terrible at crossing the street.”
“Oh, I know,” she says. “Keeps me up at night just thinking about it.”
I laugh, and she smiles at me.
“Grammy, can you help me tie this?” Ruby asks.
“I can help you,” I say.
“No, but it’s for you,” she says. “You can’t tie your own bracelet, you only have two hands.”
“True,” I say. My heart is in my throat. I want this bracelet like some people want a Tesla. Ruby hands the two ends to Reenie, who adjusts her reading glasses and ties it around my outstretched wrist. It’s so quiet, I notice. Like a church kind of quiet where you’d notice someone clearing their throat.
Reenie snips the ends, and I admire the tiny beads of every color laid out in no order at all. “Thank you,” I say to both of them.
Ruby climbs into my lap and adjusts my bracelet with tiny fingers. “You have to wear it forever,” she says. “That’s how these things work.”
“I will,” I say and mean it.
*
AIDAN AND DAN are back by nine, and I imagine they smell like sunscreen and salt. I turn around in my chair and see Aidan scavenging for food. Dan is standing at the open patio door. And I feel it, the ping, like a musical note you’d add in postproduction to emphasize how our eyes meet and how our hearts are about to explode. He smiles a little bit, and I can feel it all over my body. I love him. My heart is sending tiny bursts of energy into my body and out into the world. Centuries of songs and plays have been written about this moment. I feel strangely connected not just to Dan, but to everything. It’s happening now, over breakfast.
Reenie jumps to her feet. “Feeding time at the zoo,” she says to me. She walks into the kitchen and turns on burners and stirs pancake batter. Dan walks toward me and I get up. There would be nothing more natural in the world than to run into his arms at this moment, but I suddenly feel unsure about where we are in this relationship, and we have an audience a few yards away.
He takes my hand and entwines our fingers tightly. “Hi,” he says. There’s a huskiness to his voice that makes me feel sure again. “Did you run?”
“Nope. I ate pancakes and watched your mom read our brilliant script.”
He laughs and takes a step closer to me. “How’d she like it?”
“She didn’t say. How was surfing?”
He takes my other hand. “I thought about you the whole time while my brothers gave me shit.”
This makes me smile so big that I have to look away from his eyes. He squeezes my hands.
“I got a present,” I say and show him my bracelet. He runs his fingers over the beads, and there’s something in his expression that makes me feel like he’s as moved by it as I am.
“Romeo,” Aidan calls. “Bacon’s almost gone.”
We walk into the kitchen not touching. I can still feel where his hands were in mine, and my urge to reach out and press the palm of my hand onto the back of his T-shirt is fierce.
Paula comes out in her pajamas with Katie in her arms and helps herself to a plate of bacon. “You guys are so loud,” she says.
We sit around the table and the ride takes off. That’s how it feels, like we are on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, hands moving forks into mouths, plates being passed. Cormack is punctuating everyone’s gripes with “Let it go! Let it go!” and this makes Ruby laugh. Laughter bounces around and it’s impossible not to get hit by it. So I just strap in and feel it all around me. Dan’s sitting across from me and catches my eye. Ping . There it is again.
Aidan gets up from the table. “Okay, I’ve got to get to work for just a few hours. Finn’s going to text us if there’s any sign of Jack during the day, right?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Well, I’m reading the script,” Reenie says. “I think it’s lovely.”
I smile at her. “Thank you.”
“Are you two going to go to the beach today?” Cormack asks.
I look at Dan, who doesn’t meet my eye. “I’m sort of beached out,” he says. “I am going to need a nap first.”
*
WHEN WE’RE BACK in the room, I am pressed against the closed door with my hands in his hair. It is impossible to get adequately close to him as I press my hips into his. We are kissing so deeply that he lets out a sound that I’m sure the whole house has heard. “Shhhhh,” I say and he laughs into my mouth.
“Tomorrow we can get out of here and go back to civilization where we can be alone.”
“Yes,” I say. “I wish we could stay though. I know it’s a lot here, but.”
He rests his forehead on mine. “Yeah, it’s always a lot, but this time it’s perfect.”
He reaches behind me and locks the door.
*
THE SUN IS pouring into the room, but neither of us wants to get up to pull the shade. It might be two. I am lying with my head on Dan’s shoulder and my hand on his chest, pressing him in place. I’m not sure if he’s asleep or just quiet. He runs his hand up my back and I look up to find him watching me.
He says, “I love your jaw. How weird of a thing is that to say, like from one to ten?”
“My jaw?” He runs his fingertips along it, from my ear to my chin. “Maybe ten?”
“I like the way it tenses when you’re really mad. And the first time you wanted to murder me, I wanted to murder you right back, but also I was wondering what it would feel like to kiss you there and make you look happy again. Because when you laugh your jaw does this other thing that makes your face look honest. You’re beautiful when you’re having big emotions.”
I smile and kiss his chin. I am certainly having big emotions right now. “That’s completely nuts.” He loves my jaw. It’s not even my best part. “I’m glad I already know everything that’s wrong with you,” I say.
He laughs. “That was the tip of the iceberg. There’s tons more.”
“I doubt that. Tell me more horrible things.” I run my fingers down his stomach and think how I’ve never met a more flawless person.
“I take my clothes off inside out, so it’s a pain when they come out of the dryer.”
“That’s fine. I wasn’t ever planning on doing your laundry.”
He laughs again. I like the sound of it and the way I can feel his chest vibrate under my cheek. “Okay. I don’t like cozy mysteries.”
“No.”
“I don’t. They feel like homework. Ten people, one dead guy, two knives, and some poison. It’s like algebra, solve for X. Not relaxing.”
“Wow, this is going to be a big problem,” I say and pick up my head to kiss him like this is never, ever going to be a big problem. I love lying in Dan’s arms. I love feeling him solid next to me. “What else?”
He examines my face before he answers. “Sometimes I worry my dad might be right about me. That I’ll never really make it.” His eyes soften in a sort of vulnerable way, so I pull back and wait for more.
When he doesn’t go on, I say, “He’s not right. You’re so talented. The way you capture the beauty in things. You’ve already made it, the money will come.”
He tightens his arms around my back, and we’re quiet for a bit.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks. “Besides your spotty taste in movies.” We are exactly nose to nose. He puts a piece of my hair behind my ear and watches it until he’s sure it’s stayed. “Tell me.”
“Let me see. I have never lost my driver’s license. Until recently I’ve been pretty conscientious about my work.”
“Yeah, this is terrible,” he says and kisses me, just the softest kiss.
“My closet is a total disaster, and I eat candy in it when I’m stressed.” I rest my chin on my hands and look in his eyes. I really do want to be like Dan. I think of how I wish I could get inside his body and grab the part of him that’s not afraid to say the true thing. To him, to my mom.
“There it is,” he says. “I just saw you think something. What’s so serious?”
I close my eyes. I have been in bed with this man for the better part of twenty-four hours. I feel like I’ve set my membrane to permeable and have taken him all the way in. “Okay,” I say and open them. “It’s not a small thing. It’s more who I am.”
“I think you’re amazing,” he says. He’s looking right into my eyes when he says it.
My defenses are gone. I am naked, lying on a naked man. I am in love, all the way out on a limb with Dan, and I feel safe here. So I say it: “The thing about my dad dying? He did die. Three-car pileup on Highway 10. But, before that, he left.” It’s alarming how naturally it comes out of my mouth, the truth about my dad.
“Why?” he asks. Brutal. The word pops up in my head, uninvited, and I wince.
“Me. He didn’t want to be my dad anymore.” It’s the simplest and most complicated truth of my life. He changed his mind. “Like he actually said so.”
He tightens his grip around my back. “You didn’t tell me that before.”
“I’ve never told anyone, besides Clem. My mom doesn’t even know I know.”
“Then how do you know?”
“When I was fourteen, I had a really bad day. A boy broke my heart. My mom was still at work, so I couldn’t go to her, so I went to her photo box. I went there sometimes for comfort, to flip through the old photos and relive my parents’ love story. I think I was looking for clues as to who I was, who my dad was.” I remember the pink envelope the birthday card was in at the bottom of the box. I’d seen it before and I don’t know why I opened it that day. It was from her friend Carole and was dated a few months before my dad died. There was something written on the blank side about how she was better off without him and her friends would be there to support the two of us, and it made no sense. I raise my head to check Dan’s eyes. He’s looking at me with so much love that I feel brave all over again.
I reach around my back and take his hand in mine. I bring it up to his chest so that I can see this grounding thing, our hands woven together. “I found a card that led me to look deeper, and there was a letter from him—terrible handwriting like mine—basically saying, sorry, I can’t deal.” Brutal. It hits me again. He actually used the word “brutal.” Being my dad was brutal. That word, on that night, mixed with all the things Jack said earlier in the day—it all hardened like cement around my heart, my identity crystal- ized. For some reason, I was not a person to be loved.
“I can see why your mom would want you to just think they were happy and he died.”
“Yeah. Even before that day when I found out, I always felt like I was missing something, being the kid without a dad. But at least that just felt like tragic bad luck. Something that wasn’t my fault. When I found out he actually decided to go—like he was my dad for five years, he knew me really well, and then decided no, thanks and took off? It messed with me. I mean, I’ve known Ruby for a week and I’m going to have a hard time saying goodbye.” I was his daughter, I don’t say. It’s a sentence I said out loud over and over again that night. I was his daughter.
Dan wipes a tear from my cheek. I never planned to tell this story, and here I am telling it to Dan, who I love. Every impossible thing is in this bed right now. He says, “I can’t imagine leaving a kid. I can’t imagine leaving you, actually.” He’s made me smile and I see the gratification in his eyes. “How does your mom not know you know?”
“I never said anything. I put the stuff away and pretended I’d never found it. She kept telling me the Disney version of their love story and I kept pretending I believed it. We are so close, really, but when it comes to this, it’s like we live inside a lie. We’re protecting each other, I think, but maybe holding each other back?”
“So why don’t you stop?”
“Clem wants me to, but I don’t know how. I don’t want to call her out.”
“For lying?”
“For lying about her own reality and mine. She wants me to feel like I matter.” My voice cracks, a betrayal that comes from deep inside of me. That was too far, way more than I meant to say. I put my head down on Dan’s chest so I can listen to his heart. “That’s what’s wrong with me, I guess.”
“That you don’t matter?” I don’t want to look at him and I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t do the thing where he minimizes it and tells me that’s silly. He just waits. I don’t tell him how much I longed for a dad who would show up at a recital, give me a nickname, and worry about me when I was out late. But I’ve exposed the hole in me. The tiny paper cut in my heart that I keep trying to fill.
I keep my cheek on his chest and feel the rhythm of his breath. “It’s not a logical thing, but that’s basically it. So maybe, according to Clem, I obsess about my job and what people think of me so that they’ll think I matter. I think I’d like to be worth sticking around for.”
“Of course you are,” Dan says. “I bet if he lived he would have looked for you when he got older. And he would have been so proud of the way you grew up—funny and beautiful with a gorgeous singing voice. I bet he would have loved you.”
“I don’t think so,” I whisper. I feel a single tear overflow and roll down my cheek onto his chest.
“I find you exceptionally lovable.”
I don’t know what to say to this. My heart is wide open at this point, and Dan’s just placed a gift inside. I roll off of him and onto my side, and he turns onto his so that we can be two heads on a single pillow. Those are beautiful words, I think: “exceptionally lovable.” And also: “two heads on a single pillow.”
“Why?” I ask. “Like, tell me three things that are lovable.”
“The way you ball up your hands when you’re mad. The way you want to protect me from seeming like a loser in front of my friends, which is a thing I don’t care enough to do myself.”
The smile that is about to overtake my face makes me want to cover it with my hands. “One more,” I say, because the cracked-open version of me is greedy.
“I like how I can look at you and see a whole world inside your eyes, smart things and funny things that I’ll get to hear if I’m lucky. I feel really lucky being here with you like this.”
I don’t know if there’s room in my heart to take that in. I worry that those words will spill like water sloppily poured and seep into the earth where I can never get them back. I am not smiling now because I am so afraid of losing a single drop.
Dan takes my hand in his and moves them both up to his heart. “So. Now you know. You’re lovable.”
I smile. “Okay.”
Dan wipes a tear from my cheek and says, “I’d like to be the person who could take all of your sad things and make them happy. Like I’d hunt down each one and turn it over.”
“I don’t think anyone is that person for anyone,” I say. “I don’t think so either. But I’d like to be that person for you.”