Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Brodie was still reclining in the Adirondack, half snoozing, half remembering, with renewed amusement, Maeve tucked into a terrible orange hoodie waving her hand up and down his body asking him to dial it back. He’d been very taken with her pink cheeks and attempts to justify her request.
The mist had lifted from the river. A cormorant was drying its wings on a fallen branch. The sun was getting warmer as the morning ticked on.
He yawned and stretched his arms above his head. When he let them flop down either side of him he almost jumped out of his skin to see Zoey standing on the veranda steps eating a bowl of the cereal with marshmallows he’d brought.
“We’re not allowed this at home,” she said, heaping great spoonfuls into her mouth.
“No, neither were we, growing up.”
Zoey frowned. “So why’d you buy it?”
Already with the questions.
He thought for a second then said, “So that you’d think I was a fun, cool guy.”
Her mouth was full of cereal and she tried not to laugh.
He stifled his own smile. “Can you get me a bowl?”
“Sure.”
She put hers down on the veranda table and went back inside. A minute or two later, she came back with a bowl filled to the brim with cereal and milk, carrying it steadily like a tightrope walker over to where Brodie sat.
“This is great, thanks,” he said, taking the overfull bowl from her, trying not to spill any on himself. “You’re like a miniature servant.”
She giggled again and, going to get her own bowl, sat down on the opposite Adirondack, wiggling herself back as she held the bowl steady with both hands. Her legs stuck out horizontally on the chair. For some reason, it was the most heartbreaking thing he’d seen all weekend.
He ate a mouthful of cereal, trying not to think too much about the unexpected burst of emotion at the simple sight of her sitting in a chair. As he chewed, sweet sugariness exploded in his mouth. “Wow,” he said. “That is everything cereal isn’t meant to be.”
“It’s good, huh?” Zoey agreed, mouth full, trying not to dribble milk down her chin.
Brodie laughed. “Yeah, it’s awesome.”
He pointed out the cormorant. Zoey asked how he knew its name. He said he figured his dad must have told him.
Then Zoey said, “I don’t have a dad.”
Brodie froze. He felt his heart skip a beat in a confusing mix of both longing and utter terror.
He didn’t know how to reply. What should he say?
There was no way he could tell her the truth on his own without Maeve there.
His palms started to sweat. He wasn’t even sure if he was ready to tell her.
So, after slightly too long a pause, he said, “You can have mine if you want.”
She rolled her eyes like he was really silly and then gasped when a fish jumped in the river. Brodie was more than relieved by the distraction. “Do you want to go fishing?”
“Do the fish die?”
“Generally, yes.”
Zoey put her spoon down in the bowl and thought for a moment. “Will we eat them?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Let me go and get changed and then we can take the boat out.” He almost jumped up from his chair, he was so desperate for a breather, his heart still booming from the dad comment.
As he took the veranda steps, he realized he should probably check with Maeve if it was okay to take Zoey fishing and said, “Where’s your mom? ”
“Doing yoga,” Zoey replied, her sticking-out feet tapping to some beat in her head as she finished her cereal.
Brodie had to stop himself visibly recoiling.
Yoga was another thing on his pet-hate list. Women were always doing it on the yacht in their swimwear, mainly—Brodie concluded—so that the men onboard could ogle their pert bottoms at breakfast. Cynical, he knew, but it was only because he did the same—rolled down his wetsuit before swaggering out of the surf with his board under his arm; snowboarding in just a long-sleeve white thermal and snow pants, hair mussed. He knew his best angles.
Zoey came inside with him and propped up her iPad to watch TV in the living room. Brodie went upstairs on the pretense of getting changed, but really because he was intrigued by the image of Maeve doing yoga.
On the landing, he slowed as he came to her bedroom door that was partially ajar.
He could just see through the crack to where she was standing on one leg, arms above her head, eyes closed, wearing black leggings and a gray vest. Perfunctory and plain.
Not a flashy athleisure print nor miniscule bikini in sight.
She was actually doing yoga. As he watched, he found himself distracted by the glisten of sweat on her skin, her face relaxed and serene, her hair knotted high on her head, tendrils escaping round her neck.
The calm simplicity of it made him catch his breath.
He stepped away feeling suddenly like he was intruding, even a bit ashamed of his world view, and went to shower and get dressed.
Brodie waited downstairs, watching YouTube with Zoey, until Maeve came down to join them, pausing at the bottom of the staircase.
She was wearing knee-length shorts and a baggy white T-shirt, the ugly mushroom shoes on her feet and her hair still pulled on top of her head from the yoga, as if she was deliberately trying to repel him, and yet it was somehow having completely the opposite effect.
“Mom, Brodie’s taking me fishing,” Zoey said excitedly, half an eye still on the iPad screen.
Maeve nodded. “You know the fish die, Zo?”
“Yes,” she replied matter-of-factly.
Not wanting to sound like the useless, unthinking parent, Brodie said, “I did tell her. She’s fully prepared for the consequences.”
Maeve seemed to mull it over for a moment then said, “Okay. Well, good luck.”
Zoey jumped up and went to put on her Crocs. Brodie walked out with Maeve and said, “Do you want to come, too?”
She shook her head. “No. I think it’s good for you two to spend some time together.”
Brodie felt a twinge of unexpected disappointment that she wasn’t clamoring to spend time with him. “Sure?”
She half laughed. “An hour here on my own reading my book in complete silence? I’m sure.”
He found himself laughing back because, after just one exhausting day, he was in on the parenting joke. For a split-second he felt the physically impossible; both unfathomably, joyously light and yet the weight of the entire world pressing down on him all at once.
He loped over to the boat, trying his hardest to feel nothing at all.
* * *
It was a small wooden rowboat. The same one he and Ethan used to take out.
Ethan loved rowing and, more often than not, that meant Brodie could just stretch out at the bow of the boat and take in the scenery or catch up on some sleep.
Today, however, he was manning the oars, Zoey saying things like, “Do the fish die right away?” and, looking at the hook on the line and the box of dried mealworms he’d found in the fishing cupboard, “Do you think it hurts them?”
By the time they got halfway to the best fishing spot on the river, Brodie—torn because he loved nothing more than to do a little fishing—said, “Zoey, would you prefer it if we just looked at the fish rather than actually did any fishing?”
Her huge brown eyes raised to his and after a little pause, she nodded.
“Okay,” he said, smiling inside to himself. Then as she settled back, visibly relieved that no fish would be harmed on the trip, he handed the oars over to her and said, “Your turn.”
“Ha-ha,” she replied, sardonically, and looked for a second like his twin brother, Noah.
It gave Brodie a bolt of shock. It was the first time he’d really properly seen the Carter family resemblance—and of course it would be when Zoey was looking at him derisively.
Again, the feeling was half pride, half gut-punching horror.
“No seriously,” he said, “I’m tired. Get rowing.”
“I’m eight,” she replied with confusion. “I’m not rowing.”
Brodie pulled the oars in, put his hands behind his head and lay back. “Guess we’ll just have to stay here, then.”
Zoey assessed him, head tilted, beady eyes trying to see if he was serious or not.
Now she looked like Maeve. He watched her covertly through half-closed lids.
When he showed no signs of movement, she harrumphed and, reaching forward, took hold of the oars, heaving them practically over her head with each stroke.
Brodie opened an eye and watched. The sight made him smile.
If she wasn’t going to learn to fish, she could learn to row.
At the thought, he felt suddenly like his dad when Emmett made Brodie do something he was clearly too young for or just reluctant to try.
He realized there was a certain pride in making your kid do something they didn’t think they were capable of.
He shifted uncomfortably as he lay back in the boat. It was an odd feeling, empathizing with his dad. He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad.