Chapter 21
Arthur woke up to the smell of hotel breakfast. Rubbery eggs, watered-down coffee, and more bacon than a person could possibly eat. It was all arranged neatly on a tray, which his mother delivered to him in bed.
“Wakey, wakey…” she said.
“Don’t say it,” he pleaded, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Eggs and bakey!”
He groaned and rolled back over in bed.
“I’ll just put this here for when you’re ready,” she said, placing the tray down on the desk near the foot of the pull-out sofa.
After the wedding fiasco, Arthur didn’t know where to go or what to do. So he called his dad, who revealed that they had wrapped up their travels and had been staying in a nearby hotel to get a little extra space while they awaited the arrival of little baby Peterson.
And that’s how Arthur ended up sleeping in the “living room” of his parents’ extended-stay suite. Which was an ironic place to be, because he barely wanted to be alive.
Arthur could hear his parents hardly bothering to whisper in the next room.
“I don’t know what to say to him,” his mom said. “He just seems so heartbroken.”
“Let me talk to him,” said his dad.
A moment later, Arthur felt his father’s weight sitting down on the edge of his mattress.
“Hey, bud.” It was like he was a kid again, getting ready to be on the receiving end of a tried-and-true “We’re not mad, just disappointed” talk after flunking a test in school.
Arthur begrudgingly sat up. “Hey, Dad. Before the heart-to-heart starts, could you hand me the coffee?”
“Sure.” He chuckled, then handed over the mug. “You weren’t very talkative last night. Want to tell me what happened?”
“Nothing surprising.”
“Meaning?”
“I fucked up. I hid some things from Wren that I should have told her about. Or better yet, should never have done.”
Neal took a solemn beat. “Fixable?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah. Almost anything is fixable with the right attitude.”
Arthur took a sip. Scalding hot. Mostly water with floating bits of grounds in it. But there was caffeine in the mug somewhere, and he was going to find it.
“Yes, maybe it’s fixable. Probably. But that’s not the point.
This was always going to happen. Wren was always going to wait for me to screw something up so she could use that as an excuse to bail.
I was never going to be enough for her, but I’ve also never given her a reason to leave. Last night I finally did.”
To Arthur’s surprise, his dad began laughing.
“Did you just remember a joke or something?” Arthur asked.
“This is absurd, Arthur. You two are having a baby together any minute now! You’re not breaking up.”
“I didn’t say we’re breaking up. Eventually she’ll answer my calls and she’ll forgive me, then we’ll be fine for a while.
But forever is a long time. Whether it’s now or in five years or in ten years…
I just don’t know if it’s going to work out.
I don’t think I’m what she deserves. I don’t know if we want the same things. ”
He didn’t know if that was true. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore.
“Is it possible,” his dad began, taking a sip of his own coffee for dramatic effect, “that this doesn’t have anything to do with Wren at all?”
Arthur considered this, despite his first reaction, which was to scoff.
It was possible that this wasn’t really about Wren, who had never done anything but love him through thick and thin.
Maybe the person whose love he was really worried about was his future son or daughter.
He had enough data by now to know he wasn’t nearly spontaneous or silly enough to be the fun dad.
And he wasn’t strong and steady enough to be the family’s rock.
He doubted he was warm and nurturing enough to be an evolved, modern dad, one that maybe stayed at home.
He wasn’t handy, wasn’t successful, wasn’t wise or interesting or powerful in any way.
What on earth was he bringing to the table, then?
Objectively, outside of some kind of biological obligation, what reason would he be able to give his child to love him?
“I don’t really want to talk about it anymore,” he said finally, exhausted and defeated.
His dad nodded, understanding. Arthur could tell his father was spinning an epic motivational speech in his head and was about to unfurl some serious wisdom. But instead…
“So what do you want to do today, then?”
“I don’t know. Sleep, cry, and call Wren over and over until she answers?”
“How about we get out of the room? After breakfast, of course.”
“OK,” Arthur said. “Where do you want to go?”
Arthur and his dad stood in front of the Needle. The For Sale sign in the front yard had a magnet plastered to it that read Under Contract. Seeing it made his stomach turn.
“She really is a beauty,” his dad said looking up at the big windows, the fresh siding, and especially the damp strips of toilet paper that had all but dissolved all over the lawn and the gutters. “I can see why you fell in love with it.”
“I may have had a bit of a tantrum,” Arthur said, surveying the mess with red-hot embarrassment.
Some of it had been picked up by someone, wadded into wet balls and left casually.
But most of it was still there. “Mind helping me tidy up?” He held up a couple of trash bags and latex gloves he’d brought along.
“Spoken like a homeowner.”
“I don’t know if we’re keeping it,” Arthur said, handing a bag to his dad and rolling a glove into place on his right hand. “I don’t know anything anymore. But I shouldn’t expect anyone else to clean up my messes.”
Arthur started on the front steps and began gathering what was left of the paper. It was like scraping a stubborn sticker off a dish that had already gone through the dishwasher.
“Tell me what’s going on. Why wouldn’t you hang on to the place?” Neal bent down with some effort, and a loud groan, and joined in.
“It’s a pretty facade, that’s all. Something I thought I wanted but now that I’m here it’s…hollow, somehow. Maybe that’s because there’s literally nothing in there. I’d show you if I could.”
Neal chuckled.
“I had a good childhood, you know? I just wanted to re-create that for my kids. But it was never going to happen, not the way I envisioned it.”
“I hate to see you give up. If you scraped together some money you could still turn this into something special. Have you tried tightening up the budget, cutting back on things you don’t need?” his dad asked. “I know it’s tough, but you have to make sacrifices.”
“You don’t get it, Dad. That’s all we do is make sacrifices.
It doesn’t work the way it did when you were starting out.
” Arthur sighed. On to the front porch, where he reached out to grab any strips hanging down off the gutters.
“But in any case, I might be stuck with it, house poor forever, over my head, trapped in an endless loop of renovations and refinancing and still trying to scrape together enough money to retire one day. It’s like being on the losing end of a game of Monopoly.
You just want it to end, but it won’t until you’ve been slowly bled out for everything you’re worth. ”
But then Arthur had an idea. Just the tiniest flicker of hope. “If I decide to keep it, will you help me fix it up?”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I know, I know,” Arthur relented, anticipating his father’s words. “You put in your days of hard work and now you’re enjoying your golden years. And I know you didn’t have anyone helping you. I get it.”
He knew what his old man was going to say. And he couldn’t help but resent it just a little bit, the fact that his dad was so unbothered by the whole world going to shit. Speeding away in their little camper while everything burned in the rearview mirror.
“It’s not just that,” his dad said, a hint of shakiness in his voice. Vulnerability. “I just don’t think I’ll have time. What with me…going back to work.”
“Wait, what?”
“You’re not the only one who’s stuck, son. Now, I know no one’s going to cry me a river, but I’ve been doing the math and unless I die in the next three years, me and your mom are going to be in serious financial trouble.”
“I had no idea.”
“My knees are shot, my back hurts, and I don’t drive so great at night anymore.
Our trip has been fun, but it’s also been hell on my body.
” Where was this coming from? His father had just been all over the country.
Arthur had even seen him take a selfie with a mountain goat.
But now that he was really paying attention, he could see how much effort it took the old man to get up off one knee.
“But the good news is I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, and sexually, I’m better than ever. ”
“I didn’t need to know that part.”
“I’m just saying, the reality is…here we are.”
Another reason his dad wouldn’t be able to help him with the manual labor.
It was easy to forget that he was getting old.
Same person, same strong personality, but with a few more miles on him than Arthur often realized.
It hit him, for maybe the first time, that his dad would not be around forever.
“Did you already get a job? What is it?”
His father blushed. Honest to God, he turned red from embarrassment. “Driving instructor.”
“But you hated teaching me how to drive.” He recalled at one point his father took to bringing a thermos of whiskey around on their practice sessions just to manage the stress.
“That should tell you how dire the straits are.”
Arthur didn’t know what to say, but for some reason, he was having to hold in a laugh. The idea of his father teaching some acne-ridden fifteen-year-old to drive, sitting in the passenger seat with barely concealed rage and frustration, was hilarious to him. If a little sad.
Just then, a group of young boys rode by on bikes laughing.
“Do you wish you hadn’t waited so long to do it? To travel, I mean? Do all the parks and everything?”
Arthur thought back. If these weren’t his parents’ golden years, then when were they?
When he’d come home from college to visit, his mom eagerly washing the laundry and dad enlisting him in chores?
The years when they’d sit around the house doing puzzles together and working in the yard?
He’d always wondered why they didn’t do…
more. He thought they must be bored. Now he was starting to see that having each other, and him, was all they had ever really needed.
“Arthur, I can honestly say I don’t regret a single thing,” Neal said.
Arthur felt his throat tighten up. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of doing what you have to do, of doing work that matters. No matter what it pays.”
“Look who’s talking,” his dad said, almost as if…as if he was proud of his son.
In another moment, Arthur would be sobbing and releasing thirty years of pent-up emotion. But he still had something even more pressing weighing on his brain, on his heart.
“What do I do, Dad? If I walk away from this, I lose almost everything we’ve saved. If I don’t, I’ll lose Wren.”
“I don’t know. I’m just an old man with an achy back. But we’ve always loved her. And you’ve always loved her. You just gotta decide for yourself if she’s worth fighting for.”
Arthur didn’t have to think about that. He knew without a doubt that she was.
“My offer still stands, you know.”
“Offer?”
“A loan. No strings attached. If you still want the house, I’ll help with the costs. If you don’t want the house, you can use it to get back on your feet.”
“I couldn’t. You just said you’re going broke.”
“Not as broke as you.”
Arthur couldn’t suppress his smile at that one.
But, no. He still wanted to do this on his own. And he knew just how to start. But before he could, another car pulled into the driveway, and he knew by the puffy hair exactly who it was before she even stepped out: Linda Kellerman.