Chapter 22
Chapter 22
The idea comes to me in the middle of the night, and the next day, I’m on a plane again. Ever since the accident and awakening from a coma, I’ve had this urge to tie up loose ends. And now seems like the time to tie up this particular loose end. To finally get closure.
It’s only a week before Christmas, a week before I fly to Los Angeles to eat Wallace’s perfect holiday turkey and open Uncle Sylvester’s wildly extravagant gifts. And maybe see Lolly, if she deigns to be in the same room with me when I’m not dying.
The minute I land, I have regrets. First off, I have no idea where I’m going, and I haven’t driven in months. At least the rental car is a Toyota. It’s a different model than my Prius, but everything appears to work the same.
I set my GPS and take off for the wild blue yonder. Twenty minutes on the road, and I’m as comfortable behind the wheel as I was before the accident. What do they say? It’s like riding a bicycle.
There is snow on the mountains and billboards for all-you-can-eat buffets and performances by has-been entertainers. A disembodied voice is telling me to take a series of turns until I’m breezing down a freeway entrance and driving across the desert, trying to get my bearings. It’s difficult to know east from west without the Pacific Ocean as a guide.
I second-guess myself at least ten times, afraid that my reception will be anything but welcoming. It’s been so long that I don’t even know if I’ll be recognized. But it feels like something I have to do, something that I should’ve done a long time ago.
My exit is less than two miles away, according to the map, and my pulse quickens. My palms sweat. At the exit, I pull into a Union 76 station just to get control of my erratic breathing.
It’s there that I call Lolly, who surprisingly picks up.
“I’m in Reno.” There’s no need to elaborate, because she knows. She knows exactly why I’m here.
“Turn around, get back on the highway, and go home, Chelsea. Nothing good can come of it.”
“I have to. For my own peace of mind.”
“Then do it at your own peril.” She hangs up.
Someone taps on my window, and I jump. It takes me a few seconds to disengage the child locks and crack the window.
“You’re blocking the air compressor.” He bobs his head at the tire inflator machine, which I am indeed blocking.
“Sorry.” I watch him through my rearview mirror climb into a jacked-up truck, then move to a parking space in front of the tiny convenience store. I sit there, gathering my wits.
What’s the worst that can happen? I ask myself, and nose the car back into traffic.
It’s closing in on five, and commuters are clogging the four-lane boulevard on their way home from their workday in Reno. Congestion in the ’burbs. I pass a succession of strip malls, chain restaurants, and big-box stores, each one nearly identical. There’s a megachurch that’s as big as a city block and a high school with a jumbotron, promoting a winter formal.
I hang a right at the light, following the directions, and find myself traversing quiet residential streets. One-story stucco homes with red tile roofs and arched courtyards. Tidy rock gardens with succulent plants. Blow-up Santas and icicle lights.
By the fourth or fifth block, the houses start to get larger and the yards wider. There are more that butt up against a golf course with grass so green it looks like carpet against the desert sky.
“You have reached your destination,” my GPS tells me. I park between two driveways and check the address on my phone. It’s the two-story Mediterranean house with the wrought-iron balcony and the two-car garage.
I sit in the rental, gazing across the front yard, a drought-resistant garden of cacti and fake grass. There’s a Mexican tile address sign that says T HE R OSARIOS, the only clue that my father’s oldest friend in the world lives here.
I flip down the visor and check my reflection in the mirror, wondering if Big Al will even recognize me. The last time he saw me, I was twelve years old.
I scoop up my purse, exit the car, and gird myself for a less-than-happy reunion.
A motion light flickers on as I make my way to the front door. A holiday wreath made of plastic poinsettias greets me, making it impossible for me to use the knocker without disrupting the wreath. I press the doorbell, instead, holding my breath.
A middle-aged woman in jeans and a turtleneck sweater swings opens the door as wide as the security chain will let it. A small barking dog tries to wriggle free through the narrow opening, and the woman pulls it back by its collar.
“Can I help you?” She looks behind me to see if I’m alone.
“I’m looking for Al Rosario. I was told he lives here.”
She lifts the dog up into her arms and orders it to stop barking, which surprisingly works. The dog, some kind of terrier, nuzzles its face into the woman’s neck. “What’s this in regards to?”
I’m unprepared for the question. In all my plans for this day, it was always Big Al opening the door. I suppose somewhere in the recesses of my brain, I made room for the possibility that he’d remarried. Even that he might be a grandfather by now. But I’m completely at a loss of how to answer.
“Who’s at the door, Barbara?”
Now, Al is behind her, his eyes meeting mine, and it’s as if I’ve gone back in time twenty-four years. His dark hair has turned gray, and he’s carrying twenty extra pounds, but those sparkling brown eyes still light up a room.
“Chelsea? Well I’ll be goddamned.” He undoes the chain, swings open the door, and reaches for me, pulling me into a warm embrace. All at once it’s as if I’m surrounded by my father, my mother, and all those years of happiness. Of family.
“Let me look at you.” He pulls back and gives me a warm assessment. “You’re all grown up.”
“It’s been more than two decades.” I don’t mean it judgmentally, but I hear it come out that way. At least a little bit.
“It’s been a long time,” Al says. “Come on in. Barbara, this is Chelsea Knight. Chelsea, my wife, Barbara.”
I reach out to shake her hand and really see her since she opened the door. Before, she was a faceless woman; now, she’s Al’s wife. The anti-Gloria. She’s attractive in a quiet way with her neat brown bob, too-thin eyebrows, and warm hazel eyes. Her skin is flawless.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Chelsea. Let me get the two of you something to drink. I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do.”
It’s clear she knows who I am. What I represent. And yet, she is warm and welcoming without being ingratiating. And perhaps slightly distrustful. Why has this young woman shown up after all these years? What does she want?
I would be the same if I were in her place.
I follow Al through a hall of beige walls. There’s a curio cabinet with carefully arranged ceramic figurines, like the kind you buy at Gump’s or jewelry stores, and a console with a big pale pink vase of silk flowers. On the right is a sunken living room with more beige walls and matching carpet. But we keep going, winding up in a cramped den with too much furniture and dark paneled wood walls. It smells of cigar smoke, which surprisingly feels familiar. Al’s man cave.
“You have a lovely home,” I say to Barbara, who has been trailing behind us at a respectable distance. And it is.
“Thank you. We like it.” She smiles at Al, proudly. “Coffee?”
“Coffee would be wonderful if it’s not too much trouble.”
She is gone, and it’s just Al and me. He directs me to take one of the recliners, an oversized black padded chair with cup holders.
Al joins me in the chair’s twin and a long, awkward silence stretches between us until finally he says, “I hear you’re a psychologist now. A big deal with a talk show and books.”
“Books, yes. But not a talk show, though I do a fair amount of lecturing. So, you’re retired, huh?”
“It’ll be six years in June.” He repositions himself in the chair. “How is Lolly?”
“Divorced with two kids. She lives in Malibu now.”
He nods, looking even more uncomfortable than when we first started.
“How did you meet Barbara?” I ask him, hoping it’ll break the ice, hoping that the question won’t somehow steer us to Gloria.
He brightens. “She was a court reporter in Van Nuys. I had a case before her judge, a burglary that went south when the perp interrupted a DV. The homeowner was beating the crap out of his wife. The burglar called nine-one-one. Craziest damn thing. Me and my partner caught the case. The jury convicted the husband, and I took Barbara out for sushi. The rest is history.”
Al grins, and I get the sense that it’s as much for his story as it is for the affection he feels for his wife. And yet I know. I know that Al will never love Barbara as much as he loved
Gloria. When he used to talk about Gloria, his whole body vibrated. And his eyes lit up like the sun. He used to watch her walk across a room, never taking his eyes off her.
Barbara brings our coffees and shuts the door on her way out. Al doesn’t watch her go.
“You must think it’s weird that I just showed up here today. No announcement. No nothing,” I say.
He hitches his shoulders. “I’m glad you did.”
I wonder.
“I was in a pretty significant accident not too long ago.” I don’t mention the cable car, because it’s one of those things that people have trouble believing. Sort of like saying I was crushed by one of the toy boats in the “It’s a Small World” ride in Disneyland. “It made me realize that I had unfinished business.”
The expression on his face crumples. “Chelsea, you were twelve years old. If anyone has unfinished business, it’s me. And I’m ashamed that it took you coming here for me to face it.”
I surreptitiously wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.
“What happened?” he asks.
“A traffic accident. I was in the hospital for a month. But I’m good now.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry about everything.”
“Me, too.” It comes out hoarsely, and I have to wait to compose myself before I speak again. “I’m sorry about what my father did to you.”
“Oh, sweet girl, now stop it. You didn’t have a damned thing to do with that. None of you did. It was just one of those things.”
I see the moment when he realizes what he’s said, the way he’s trivialized it.
“The affair was,” he corrects himself. “The rest of it . . . Jesus.” He scrubs his hand through his hair.
“Why didn’t you ever talk to us again?” My voice is small, like I’m twelve again.
He palms his face. I’ve never seen Big Al cry, so I don’t know what it looks like when he does but think this is probably it.
“I didn’t know what to say to you girls. He was my best friend, and I was so angry at him for what he did to your mom, to you girls, to me . . . to himself.” He trails off and stares out the window. He’s in his own world now, far away.
“It was wrong of me.” He releases a breath. “You and your sister meant everything to me. But you’ve got to understand that for so long, I couldn’t make sense of it. I couldn’t make sense of any of it. The way he betrayed us, all of us. He wasn’t the man I knew. He wasn’t the man I loved like my own brother. It took me a long time to see clear of it. And when I finally did, you girls were in Los Angeles, living your own lives. I didn’t want to bring any of it back to you. It was better that you moved on. And I knew your uncle loved you, that he’d take good care of you.”
“He does and he did,” I say. “But we loved you, too.”
“I know, honey. I can’t tell you how my heart ached losing the two of you. But you’re a big girl now, a successful young woman, so you have to understand how much what happened messed me up. I lost the three most important people in my life that day.”
Three? And then I realize he means Gloria, too.
“What happened to her, Al?” I don’t even have to say her name.
“Last I heard, she married a chiropractor and moved to Tucson. That’s all I know.”
“I’m so sorry.” I close my eyes, wishing I had something more constructive to say.
“It was a terrible situation. But this I can tell you with certainty, your father worshipped the ground you and Lolly walked on. Nothing made him happier than you two. He used to pass your pictures around the West Valley Division, brag about how smart you were, how you got straight As in school. No father was ever prouder of his kids.”
I nod. Uncle Sylvester said the same thing in so many words. I have no reason to doubt it. I always felt my father’s love. Growing up, it was all around me, pure and constant. I’m evolved enough to understand that my mother’s murder, my father’s suicide, had nothing to do with Lolly and me. We were just collateral damage.
“Have you forgiven him?” Al asks.
“I don’t know.” Because how do you forgive someone who took everything that ever mattered from you? “Have you?”
“I don’t know that forgiveness is the right word.” He sips his coffee, which until now neither of us has touched. “But I’ve made peace with it. It took a long time, but I have. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that what happened couldn’t diminish how much he loved us and how much we loved him.”
“He did love you, Al. I may have only been a kid, but we all knew that you were everything to him.” I turn to my coffee, which has already gone cold and take a drink anyway.
“I wish it wasn’t so complicated,” I say.
“Don’t we all, kiddo. Hang on a sec, I want to show you something.” He gets up, goes to one of the built-in bookcases, plucks out a photo album, and motions for me to join him on the sofa while he flips through the pages. Pages and pages of pictures.
Dad and him leaning against their patrol car, laughing at the big box of donuts on the roof. Him and Dad in our old driveway, posing next to Al’s new motorcycle. Mom sitting on Dad’s lap in Al and Gloria’s backyard. Lolly and me in a kiddie pool, splashing water at each other.
Gloria in a bikini, smiling at the person behind the camera. Probably Al.
I can’t believe he kept this.
“It’s part of my history,” he says, sensing my surprise. “All of our history. The good history. I don’t want to erase that.”
He turns the page to a picture of my parents and Lolly and me, sitting around a cake on the dining room table at the house in Porter Ranch. “Was this my eighth birthday party?” I remember the dress. A frothy white confection that itched worse than poison ivy, but Mom made me wear it anyway, because it was a gift from Uncle Sylvester.
“Yep. I picked up the cake from that bakery on Ventura Boulevard. Went twenty minutes out of my way because you wanted their strawberry ice cream cake.”
I don’t remember the cake, but I smile, because I was picky like that.
In the next picture, it’s Halloween, I’m dressed up like a fairy princess, holding Dad’s hand. I trace the outline of his handsome face with my finger.
“Oh God.” I tilt my head back in a useless attempt to keep the tears from dripping down my cheeks.
Al gets a box of tissues and pushes a wad into my hands. “These are the things I try to remember every time I think of him.”
“I miss them so much.” My voice trembles, and Al pulls me against him and lets me cry into his chest. “I’m sorry. I really need to pull myself together.”
“I get a little misty myself when I look at them. Not a day goes by when I don’t miss them, too, Chelsea.”
“But you have this nice new life.” I draw the tissue across my nose.
“Barbara’s the best thing that ever happened to me. How about you? You have a nice guy in your life?”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that I’m divorced, so I just say, “Yes. He’s a divorce attorney, if you can believe that.” But I almost say a biophysicist, who moonlights as a handyman.
“That’s good. I know you said Lolly’s divorced, but is she seeing someone? Someone solid? Reliable?”
I’m embarrassed to tell him that I’m clueless about my sister’s life, that she doesn’t let me in. Or worse, the truth. That for a long time, I didn’t want in. That I’ve dedicated my life to fixing other peoples’ problems but can’t make room for my sister’s.
“Not that I’m aware of.” At least it isn’t a lie. As far as I know, Lolly isn’t dating. “It’s tough with two kids. But she has a decent relationship with her ex.”
“That’s important,” Al says.
“Did you and Barbara ever have children?” The world needs fathers like Big Al.
“Two steps from Barbara’s previous marriage and three grands. Caleb and his family live in Maine, and Alexandra, her husband, and the twins in Reno. All good kids.”
“I’m glad,” I say, the words lodging in my throat. “You deserve the best, Al.”
“Come here.” He pulls me into another hug, and I linger there against his wide, warm chest and for a few seconds pretend he’s my father. Pretend that my parents are still alive, and that Lolly and I are the best of friends, our babies the best of cousins.
Eventually, we come apart, and Al returns to the big book of photos. “Look at this one.” It’s a picture of Lolly and me eating ice cream on the Santa Monica Pier. We couldn’t have been more than five and eight.
But it’s not that photograph that catches my eye.
“Al, who’s this?” I point to a picture on the next page of my dad, Al, and another man in Al and Gloria’s backyard. The man is standing in front of a barbecue, holding a spatula. And Dad and Al are drinking cans of Budweiser Light, laughing, like someone just cracked a joke.
Al takes a closer look and breaks into a crazy grin. “That’s Jimbo. You don’t remember him?”
I shake my head.
“Jim Toomey. He used to be on the force with your Dad and me. Great guy. Did a tour in Desert Storm and joined the department around 1995. We used to razz him about his buzz cut. He married a friend of your mom’s. Sandy, I think her name was.”
I do remember Sandy. She was a petite lady with a voice like Minnie Mouse, who sometimes helped organize homes and garages with my mom and our neighbor. But I’m more interested in Jim Toomey.
“Is he retired?”
Al gives a lighthearted chuckle. “You can say that. He died eight years ago. Had a stroke on the job.”
And yet, he was alive and well in my dream.
It’s this, not my reunion with Big Al, that consumes me as I drive from the Rosarios’ home to my hotel. And it’s still Jim Toomey I’m consumed with as I fly home the next day.