Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
LUKE
I couldn’t stop thinking of Lorelai last night. Memory after memory from our younger years popped into my head but this time I saw the past through her eyes. The girl worshipped me, and she made no bones about letting me know. In a typically thoughtless teenage way, I was annoyed by her adoration. I wish I could go back in time and give myself a swift kick in the butt. Not that anything could or would have happened given our age difference, but I sure as heck could have been nicer to her.
Lorelai was so upset last night that this morning I make the decision to pack up my things and move them over to my parents’ house for the rest of my stay in Elk Lake. It’s not that I don’t want to see her. I find that’s the problem. I don’t want to cause her any more heartache than I already have.
I consider leaving her a note to thank her for letting me stay with her, but I think that might make her angry. I'll call her to thank her and see if she wants to meet up before I return to Chicago.
My dad is still sleeping when I walk into my parents’ house. My mom leads the way to the kitchen before telling me, “Dad ate three bowls of soup last night and the equivalent of two whole sandwiches.”
“He must have been on a hunger strike,” I tease.
“He loved everything that you made for him,” she tells me.
“Then why did he tell me to quit bringing him food when he was in the hospital?”
“Because you brought your food, not his. And your food makes him think he’s not good enough, like you’re the better chef.”
“I’ve been training a long time,” I tell her. I put the grocery sack I’m carrying on the counter before pulling a mixing bowl out of the cabinet. I take six eggs out of the refrigerator before cracking them into the bowl and adding some heavy cream and cinnamon. “I haven’t made Dad’s french toast in ages.”
“Make a lot,” she says. “I’m starving.”
As she sits down at the kitchen table to keep me company, I ask, “How did Dad sleep last night?”
“He tossed around a bit, but once I gave him his pain meds, he knocked off.”
“I talked to Jim about Dad’s childhood,” I tell her.
She nods her head. “He’s a good man.”
I whisk the egg mixture into a froth before saying, “I’m going to have to tell Dad that I know.”
“I figured.”
“So, you’re fine with that?”
“I am. My first goal is peace in the kingdom, and I have not been very pleased the last couple of years.”
“How do you want me to handle things? Do you want me to tell Dad that I just came across his album?”
She shakes her head. “Tell him the truth. But let him enjoy his breakfast first. He might as well get a last meal.”
“That’s pretty dramatic,” I laugh.
“So’s your dad.”
We sit quietly while I cut thick slices of french bread before soaking them in the egg mixture. After the oven is preheated, I put the cooking sheet inside and set the timer for thirty minutes. Then I put bacon strips on the grill and make my dad’s famous maple butter.
When everything’s done, I assemble a tray and carry it into the living room. My dad’s sitting up in bed with a smile on his face. “I smell french toast.”
Laying the tray on his lap, I tell him, “I made it just the way you always did.”
He looks skeptical. “Why didn’t you try to make it fancy?”
Sitting down on the chair next to him, I tell him, “If I’ve learned anything it’s that you don’t mess with perfection. Your french toast has always been that.”
Picking up his fork, he cuts into his food and takes a bite. “It’s the cinnamon,” he says. “You’ve got to add a lot of cinnamon.”
I watch as he continues to enjoy his meal when my mom walks in. “I’m going to take a shower. Will you boys be okay without me?”
My dad looks panicked. “Don’t be gone long.”
She doesn’t respond. Instead, she runs up the stairs like she doesn’t want to be anywhere near us when I tell my dad what I know.
Once he’s finished eating, I ask, “You want more?” He shakes his head. “Do you need to use the bathroom?” Another head shake.
“You don’t need to stay,” my dad says. “I’ll be fine until your mom comes back.”
“That’s not how we’re going to do this, Dad.”
“Do what?”
“We’re going to sit here and work things out. It’s past time.”
He shifts around nervously. “What do we have to work out?”
“Your anger with me,” I practically yell at him. “I’d like to know why you’re so mad at me.”
“You know why,” he says petulantly.
“I know you wanted me to work with you at Pop’s, but you have to accept that’s not the kind of food I want to make. ”
“Because you’re too good for it,” he hisses.
“No! Because I like making other stuff better. I like being creative.”
When he doesn’t respond, I tell him, “I know, Dad.”
“I don’t know what you think you know…” he starts to say, but the look on his face gives him away.
“I know about your childhood,” I say as calmly as I can manage given the continued discord. “I know about your parents. I know about Bobby.” Neither one of us says a peep after that. It’s so quiet I fancy I can hear my own heart beating. I finally ask, “Did you hear me?”
His head barely moves up and down.
“Is there some reason you never told me?” I demand.
He offers a tentative shrug with the shoulder of his good arm. “What’s to tell?”
“How about that my grandparents died and so did my uncle?” I cannot believe he’s trying to act like this was no big deal.
“How would your life have been different had you known?” he asks. His voice is monotone like he isn’t feeling any emotion whatsoever.
“I don’t know, I might have felt like my dad wasn’t a stranger to me.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he counters. “We always had a great relationship.”
“Until you decided to hate me.”
Several long hard moments pass before he says, “I don’t hate you. I’m just disappointed.”
“Why would you be disappointed in me?” I demand. “It’s a tribute to you that I followed in your footsteps.”
“You’re making your own path,” he says. “You’re not following mine.”
“Just because I don’t want to work at Pop’s doesn’t mean I haven’t followed in your footsteps,” I counter. “You were never disappointed in me when I was in business school,” I remind him.
“I’m not disappointed in you ,” he says quietly .
“You just said that you were disappointed. You can’t take that back now.”
He shakes his head. “I said I was disappointed. You just assumed you were the reason.”
I stand up and start to pace back and forth beside my dad’s bed and demand, “What are you so upset about then?”
I don’t know what I expect him to say, but I’m surprised when he starts crying. After a couple of minutes, he gestures for me to sit back down. He tells me, “My dad owned a restaurant called Pop’s when Bobby and I were little.”
What?! “How could you not have told me that?”
“He used to talk about how he wanted me and Bobby to work with him someday.”
“That’s nice,” I say for lack of anything else coming to mind.
“It was, but like you, I wasn’t interested.”
“Are you serious?” If he didn’t want to work with his dad, then why in the world would he expect differently from me?
“Bobby wanted to work with Dad. But that wasn’t good enough. Dad wanted us all together.”
“He didn’t live long enough to see if that would happen,” I say. “Maybe it would have.”
“I don’t think so.” My dad explains, “I had other plans. I was going to move to South America and become a soccer star.” I know my dad used to love to play soccer, but I had no idea he had such lofty dreams.
“Why didn’t you then?” I demand.
“Because my parents died and then Bobby died.”
I inhale sharply before saying, “I’m not following, Dad.”
The look on his face is one of pure agony. “The day before my parents were killed in that car accident, I told my dad that I hated him and that I was never going to work in his stupid restaurant.” The raw emotion in his voice hits me hard.
“How old were you?” I ask him.
“Ten.” I can’t imagine losing my parents so young.
“Dad,” I tell him. “Kids say stupid things all the time. Do you remember how I tried to get you and mom to sell Kelsey after she was born so that I didn’t have to share you?”
“You were only three,” he says. “I was ten. I was old enough not to say something as horrible as I did.”
“You were a kid ,” I remind him. “You were frustrated, and you just wanted your dad to be proud of you for who you are, not what he wanted you to be.”
I can see the exact moment this concept hits him upside the head. Hammering it home, I tell him, “Like I want you to be proud of me .”
“I am proud of you, Luke.” He speaks so quietly I’m not really sure he said it.
“Then why are you so mad at me?”
He thinks for a minute. “I don’t know. I guess …”—he takes a beat to put his thoughts together—“I guess I figured that if I made my dad’s dream come true then I would somehow make things right with him.”
My heart feels like it’s in a vise. How has my father carried this pain around for so long and not seen that there is nothing for him to feel guilty about? “You raised kids. You know we get mad and say stupid stuff. You were just a kid yourself,” I remind him.
“Maybe, but my parents died knowing that I said something awful. They died not knowing how sorry I was for doing that.”
Standing up, I lean over and gently place my arms around my dad and let him cry on my shoulder. After several long minutes, I tell him, “Your parents forgave you immediately, Dad. It’s what parents do.”
His words come out as a hiccup. “But then Bobby died.”
“That wasn’t your fault, either,” I tell him. “Jim said he was hit by a drunk driver.”
“Ah, so Jim is the one who told you what happened.”
I don’t confirm or deny his assumption. That can be a fight for another day. “You didn’t kill your brother, Dad,” I affirm.
“I felt like it was all my fault,” he says. “If I’d never said that horrible thing maybe my parents wouldn’t have died, and neither would Bobby because he would have never gone to live with those other people.”
“How have you been carrying this burden for so long?” I ask. “You were a kid. You weren’t responsible for the bad things that happened to your family.”
“I know that in here.” He points to his head. Touching his heart, he adds, “In here it’s a different story.”
I walk into the kitchen and pour a glass of cold water. When I return to his bedside, I tell him, “Drink this. It’ll help.”
He smiles. “That’s what I always told you.”
“You were right, too. You were right about so much, Dad.”
After he drinks his water, I take his glass back to the kitchen. My father has always seemed like such a big, strong, functioning human, yet he was being eaten alive by anguish and regret over something that simply wasn’t his fault.
I have no idea how to help him heal from this, but I know one thing with great certainty: I will find a way because that’s what family does for each other.