Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Present Day
Palm Springs, California
Mission Day Three
The Italian restaurant may have been overrated.
Of course, it was possible that the food tasted like ash only because Mick’s mouth felt like an ashtray.
For the first time in God knows how many years, he wanted a drink.
No, he knew exactly how long it had been since he’d felt this nearly overwhelming desperation.
Not years, plural.
Mere months.
He’d felt something very similar on the night he’d made love to Emily the first time. He knew he had to tell her the truth—because being intimate with her, without her knowing who he really was...? That was not okay, so he had to tell her, except he hadn’t, had he?
He hadn’t poured himself a stiff drink that night either, so he wasn’t a total shit-ass loser. Just mostly one.
But now here he was—here they were—sitting in this upscale restaurant with her words still echoing around them both.
Marry me.
He wanted to say yes more than anything. He wanted that life and it was right here. It was so close he could reach out and grab it.
If he lied to her forever.
Which he couldn’t do.
Well, he didn’t want to do it right this moment, anyway, as the waiter took away the plates from their half-eaten entrees.
But all he had to do was wait a half a minute and he’d be ready to climb aboard the lie-to-her-forever bus.
He’d been flipping back and forth between the two options ever since they’d been seated at this intimate little table in the corner.
Emily hadn’t had much of an appetite either, tonight. She’d been quiet all throughout their meal because she no doubt thought he was trying to figure out a way to gently tell her, That’s a hard no from me, dawg. Gotta pass on that whole married-to-you thing. Your journey ends here.
Which was the dead last thing he wanted to say.
Although, when he slapped that Hello, my name is Milt name tag onto his shirt, she was going to say those exact words to him.
Maybe.
No, she definitely would.
God damn it. How could she not?
So he just kept vacillating.
Tell her.
Don’t.
That idea that had seemed so solid less than a week ago—to just never, ever, ever tell her who he’d been for the first twenty-one years of his life—became even more appealing when he tried to figure out how to start this impossible conversation.
Just say it? So, I’m really Milt Devonshire Junior, but oh, don’t run away because I also really didn’t kill your mother. My father did that. He just framed me for his crime, although at the time that I confessed, I actually believed him because I was that much of a fuck-up.
She’d run away before he could say run away.
He could start with the news that his father had killed her mother before the big I’m Milt Junior reveal, but the hard truth was, there was just no way that anything he said to her wouldn’t end up with her running away.
Forever.
Which now made him circle back to the whole lying-to-her-forever thing, which was looking like a far more ideal option as, after saying that she really didn’t want dessert with the heavy subtext of please let’s not sit here in awkward silence for another nano-second, Emily escaped to the ladies’ room.
Because on top of everything else, there was the promise he’d made to Emily’s grandfather, Frank Santana, on the day Mick had shown up that second time—the time that Frank hadn’t killed him despite his earlier threat.
And to be clear, this was the second promise he’d made to Frank, since he’d already spectacularly failed to keep his first—which was to stay far away from Emily.
But that second time he’d met with Frank Santana, Mick had again arrived unannounced. Although he had purposely showed up in the morning on a school day. He knew if Emily was at home while he tried to talk to Frank, she’d sorely distract them both.
So he’d rung the bell on the Santana’s little house—standing at the very same door where four years earlier Marina had no doubt tied the laces of her running shoes and pulled on a sweatshirt before locking it behind her.
For the last time in her about-to-end, too-short life, thanks to Mick’s asshole of a father.
Frank’s face had been an instant thundercloud when he opened the door to see Mick standing there.
But Mick was prepared. He had the cashier’s check out of the envelope, and pushed up against the screen door so that Frank couldn’t miss all those many, many zeroes in the number under the words Pay to the order of Francis Santana, with a memo note saying Custodian for Emily Johnson.
“Since you don’t want Emily and your daughter to have to relive Marina’s death in a civil court case, I confronted my father with the evidence I found and I negotiated a settlement with him,” Mick said as quickly as he could, stumbling only a little over the words he’d rehearsed.
“This is your share. I had the bank check written in your name, as custodian for Emily because, well, I figured she’d be her mother’s beneficiary, but since she’s underage.
.. See, I thought you could tell her that her mom had a life insurance policy that you didn’t know about until the insurance company contacted you—that it took years for them to find you.
That would explain where the money came from without bringing me—or my father—into it. ”
The fact that Frank hadn’t slammed the door in his face—or punched through the screen to grab him by the throat and squeeze—was a positive sign. At least it meant that he was listening.
“This will cover her education,” Mick told the old man what he surely already knew.
“It’ll let her own her own home. Give her the chance to start her own business, have a job, a career where she’s her own boss.
It’ll let her travel if she wants. And yes, I know very clearly what it won’t do.
It won’t make up for losing her mom—I know that.
It won’t make up for her mother not being at her graduation, at her wedding, and when she someday has kids of her own.
.. But even if all it does is make her life a tiny bit easier.
.. That’s worth something, isn’t it? Please, Mr. Santana, take it.
You don’t have to tell her it’s from me—and I promise I won’t tell her either.
I already promised I’d stay away from her, so, you know, how would I?
Tell her? Right? She’ll think this money came from her mom, which. .. it did. You know?”
Frank had said nothing so far, but he looked down at that check still pressed against the screen, and Mick held his breath, hoping...
Frank looked back up, into Mick’s eyes and then he unlocked the flimsy little door and opened it just a crack.
Mick tried not to burst into tears as he passed over the check. “Thank you—” he started, but Frank cut him off.
“Leave,” the old man said. “Now. And don’t ever come back.”
He had. And he hadn’t. Until... He had.
Just to check in on Emily. Just to make sure she was okay.
Yeah. Right.
Emily was still in the ladies’ room, and the rest of the wine in her glass was right there.
But the waiter swung past with the receipt for their dinner, slipping it onto the table in a little tray along with his credit card. So Mick focused on that, adding a hefty tip and signing the copy he was supposed to sign. He left it and the pen in the tray as he put his card back into his wallet.
He checked his phone—he’d had it on silent during dinner.
Good thing because there was a missed call and a voicemail message from some southern California phone number—that was the last thing he needed right now.
A pitch to go solar or to change his cell phone provider.
He was on the verge of simply deleting it, without even listening, when. ..
“Hey, can we go for a walk?”
Mick looked up to find Emily, back from the ladies’ room, standing beside him. She didn’t even bother to sit back down.
“Yeah,” he said, quickly pocketing his phone as he stood up and somehow managed to smile. Marina Santana hadn’t known that it was the last time she’d left her father’s house through his front door. But he was pretty certain he’d just had his very last dinner with Emily.
Because he couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t lie to her forever.
“Yeah. Let’s walk,” he said.
Emily started the conversation. She just dove right in, headfirst. “Can we just forget what I said back in the hotel room? I was sitting there during dinner, thinking it’s just too soon and—”
“But it’s not,” Mick said, pulling her out of the sidewalk’s steady stream of pedestrian traffic, into a courtyard with a little fountain in front of some kind of historical site, giving them a tiny piece of privacy. “I would love to marry you.”
“But...?” She said it for him, because it was right there, so clearly in his eyes.
He took a deep breath. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said. “A lot I haven’t told you.” He was silent then, just looking over at the water, quietly burbling in the fountain.
“About your family,” Emily prompted, because this was clearly so hard for him to talk about. “I kind of already know that they suck, just from the way that you avoid talking about them.”
“Suck is an understatement,” Mick admitted.
“Not my mother. She was... well, she was... weak. She cared more about having money than, well, me. No, you know, maybe it was a tie. She loved me, but not enough to leave my father—or really my father’s house.
But in the end it didn’t matter because she died when I was still pretty young—cancer—and I would’ve had to go and live with him after that, so. .. It was what it was.”
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.