CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
“I came over because I was hoping Dad could help me figure out what to do next,” I say. “Casey moved out yesterday. She asked me if we could try for a relationship and I…nixed that idea.”
Piper gasps. “You did?”
I nod, sighing heavily.
“You two were on your way to being married,” Piper goes on. “Why on earth would you let her walk away from you?”
“We weren’t—come on. Piper. You’re being dramatic. I never even said I loved her. You think I proposed to her before saying ‘I love you’?”
“Well, do you love her?” Piper demands, her voice nearing a squeak.
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes. But I can’t give her the time and attention she deserves. And more than that…I already love her so much that the thought of losing her keeps me up at night. I don’t think I should go further than this.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom squeezes my shoulders.
Piper huffs and crosses her arms but doesn’t say anything else.
Asher is watching me with a smirk on his face. “But you brought her to game night. You don’t think you should go further, but you already went all the way.”
I dip my chin, leveling him with a look. “All right, you’ve made your point.”
“We should give Griffin a break from the pestering,” Mom declares, patting my shoulders again. “Let’s go inside and shift gears.”
“I’m going to look for the safe combination again,” Piper announces. “Now that I won’t be getting the sister-in-law of my dreams, I need to distract myself.”
“Oh my god,” I mutter.
We file inside. Mom and Piper dumped some bags when they showed up, so I help Mom put the groceries away while Piper and Asher poke around in the kitchen drawers.
“I remember writing it down and then putting it on the table,” Piper mutters.
“How many times does Mom need to have a psychic burst of inspiration before you’ll keep track of the damn numbers?” I ask as I put the bananas on the hook.
Piper levels me with a glare. “Not funny, sister-in-law ruiner.”
“Next time, put me in charge of the magic numbers, please,” I continue, secretly enjoying the back and forth. Piper is easy to rile up, and this is my job as her older brother.
“You’d have been in charge last time if you weren’t so distracted by your ‘roommate,’” Asher says with exaggerated air quotes.
I turn to him from the fridge, feigning shock. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“You’re lucky Dane and Jett aren’t here, because they’d be on our side too,” Piper shoots back. “Team Casey. In case that wasn’t clear.”
“You’re supposed to be on Team Griffin,” I clarify. “Which will, you know, eventually merge with Team Casey. If all goes well.”
Piper’s eyes light up. “Do you have a plan?”
“Just look for the numbers,” I tell her, stowing the cans of red beans before shutting the kitchen cabinet.
I don’t have a plan, because the logistics of the rest of the week are complicated.
Casey is in Chicago; I need to be at the Cleveland airport tomorrow evening for a flight to Colorado.
I’ll be gone for a week. Yet it hardly seems right to wait a week to ask Casey if she’ll talk to me in person.
Asher looks at his phone and excuses himself to take a call, but I only catch hushed tones near the front door. After I’m done storing the last of Mom’s groceries, Piper shrieks.
“Here it is!” She holds it up triumphantly. “Oh my god, it was in the drawer with all the tea towels. Let’s go try it!”
Mom takes it, holding it pinched between her thumb and forefinger like keeping it visible in front of everyone will prevent us from losing it yet again. We head to the living room, where the safe has occupied a forgotten corner like the quietest pet in the world.
Piper kneels in front of the safe. “Should we call Jett and Dane?”
“Dane’s on the water today,” I reply. “He’s giving some potential investors a tour of the islands.”
“And Jett’s elbow deep in some BMW,” Asher says.
“Let’s open it,” Mom concludes. “If the numbers work, that is.”
“Here goes nothin’.” Piper sticks her tongue past her lips as she gets on the level of the combination lock. She spins the dial, cross-referencing every five seconds the sheet that Mom holds, like she’s afraid the numbers will change. Left, long spin right, left again.
Once the numbers are in, she takes a deep breath. “Ok, I did the numbers, but now what?”
“Turn the handle,” Mom says softly.
Piper does as she’s told. There’s a deep clunk of bolts retracting.
“Oh my god,” Piper whispers. She pulls the door, and it swings open.
“Holy shit. Mom. You really did pull the safe numbers out of the ether,” I say.
My mind is spinning. How is this possible?
Part of me was expecting—hoping?—that the numbers she’d said were random.
There’s still something a bit unsettling about accepting that my mom has become mildly psychic after the bakery fire that almost killed her.
But here we are. Piper sticks her hand in and begins pulling things out.
There’s a small wooden box, like a miniature pirate’s chest, locked with a padlock.
There’s an old photo printed on a canvas pulled taut over a square wooden frame.
Piper pulls out a leather journal, locked down with another padlock. A pocket watch. A stack of papers.
Mom begins rifling through the papers. She gasps a moment later.
“I think these are your father’s things.”
She shows us a copy of a passport application. My father’s details are all over it, with a small, faded photo stapled to the top. He looks young, maybe early twenties.
“This is from before we even met,” she whispers, staring hard at the photo. Then she looks back at the safe. “These must be all his things. But how did it end up in the basement of the bakery?”
“You’ve never seen this safe before, right?” Asher asks.
“Never. I wonder how it got there. I wonder if he even remembered that he had it,” Mom muses.
We begin handling each item, one by one. The papers aren’t particularly exciting, just humdrum documents from roughly a two-year period of my father’s early life. Piper peers inside the safe one more time and sucks in sharply.
“There’s one more thing,” she says.
A moment later, she pulls out something that fits in the palm of her hand.
It looks like a beaded figurine. Red and white prismatic light glints in the afternoon light as Piper inspects it from different angles.
Then her lip starts quivering.
“It’s a lobster,” she whispers before bursting into tears. Mom wraps an arm around Piper’s shoulders as Piper cries. This is a little intense, given her boyfriend’s nickname is Uncle Lobster. I rub my forehead, trying to keep my shit together.
“Hey. Look at this.” Asher nudges me, passing me the stretched canvas frame.
I take it from him, my gaze washing over the image.
It’s my father in his early twenties, looking every inch a handsome bachelor.
He’s leaning against the trunk of a vintage coupe, smiling and laughing at someone off camera.
It’s grainy, late-eighties perfection. On the back of the canvas, somebody wrote:
I’m casting off the known for the pleasures of the unknown. I’ll risk it all. I know it will be worth it. – F. R. E.
I draw in a shaky breath, looking at the picture again. I don’t know what F.R.E. means, but the rest of it sure as hell makes sense.
Not that my father could have known then.
“Oh, wow,” Mom murmurs, taking the picture from me as she inspects it. She shakes her head. “This must have been taken right before we met. I think it was when he started that road trip that led to us meeting and falling in love. Looks about that age.”
“I’m gonna take some pictures to send Jett and Dane,” Asher says, sniffing.
I nod, turning the canvas over in my hands.
I don’t know if this is a message from my dad, but I’m feeling the urge to get in my truck and drive. Roughly six hours west, until I find the person who makes me willing to risk it all. Then I will get on my knees and beg her for a second chance.