Chapter 62. Micah
MICAH
“Your keys.” I scoop them out of the canoe-shaped bowl in the foyer and hand them to my dad. “Thanks for dinner. I didn’t realize the time. You should stay over. I can make up the bed in the other room.”
My father pivots, checking his pockets. He follows me through the kitchen into the living room.
“Here.” I pass him his cell off the arm of the yellow couch.
“I’m going to bounce, Harmonica. Got an early flight.”
A dull pang hits my chest; the slippery fish is getting away.
You teach people how to treat you. Okay, Dr. Val. Here goes nothing. “It’d be nice to spend more time together. Maybe grab breakfast before you go.”
“Good dinner.” He smiles. “The restaurant was Freemans, right? Like the Alley.”
Way to change the subject, Dad. “Yeah, I like that place.”
“Your mom and I once stayed with my buddy who lived above it. They called it something else back in the ’90s, and it was not a safe place to be at night. Bunch of junkies shootin’ up.”
I cross my arms, holding my shoulders. “Tell me more about her. What was she like?”
“I’ve told you—”
“Sure, about being pregnant with me. But what about the rest? I spoke with Mom’s parents the other day . . .”
He lifts his head, gaze sharp.
“Aunt Max gave me their email.”
“She would.” His lips pull tight. “I don’t know why you’d bother.”
“I want to know her.”
“Are you trying to hurt me or something with all these questions?”
“Me hurt you? She’s my mother.” I throw my hand in the air.
“You can’t know her, Micah. Don’t you get that? You never will.”
“Why keep her a secret?”
He winces, waving me off. “They probably gave you an earful about me.”
“Not really. We mostly talked about Mom . . . her favorite things growing up, her personality.”
“A hellion.” He snorts.
“They called her assertive.”
He snickers, gazing down at his pointed leather boots, then strolls over to the yellow couch and sits opposite the fireplace.
“Did you know I have fifty-five cousins? I’m thinking about visiting them upstate.”
Dad’s quiet. He looks uncomfortable. Without a guitar, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
“Want a drink?” I gesture to the bar. Anything to make him stay a little longer.
He sighs. “I never met your mom’s extended family. Mia didn’t exactly bring me around. Ah . . . yeah, I’ll take a small one to send me off. Scotch, if you have it. Are you having one?”
I shake my head. “Not with the pills I’m taking.
” I walk over to Granddad’s bar table, still stocked with dusty liquor bottles that must date back to when he and my grandmother were still married.
A tasteful bamboo sign hangs above it: BIANCA’S TIKI BAR.
I run the 7UP bar towel through one of the lowballs—cerulean blue, my grandmother’s signature color.
He wrinkles his forehead. “Your granddad can’t drink either?”
“Definitely not.”
“Wish that was the case when I lived here. See that unevenness on the wall over there?”
I follow his eyes and see the indentation for the first time.
“This scar above my eye”—he points to his forehead—“is from when my head went right through it. I was around eleven, I think.”
I suck in my breath. Not sure I can handle a bad story about my granddad right now.
“He had terrible aim after a couple martinis. Overthrew the football. I dove and my face met the plaster. Not allowed to cry, of course. He did pull out a bag of frozen peas. One of my fondest memories of him, believe it or not. We moved the old grandfather clock to cover the hole left by my head. Our little secret we tried to keep from your grandmother. She found out, of course.” He chuckles, rubbing the side of his face. “The guy had his moments.”
“Must have been cool being a kid around here.”
“The Garden People ran a tight community, our own little paradise to roam and conquer.” He parries with an imaginary sword.
“Mom would often disappear, so one of the other parents would watch us. I think they gave ole Bianca some slack given who she married. They knew dealing with Gabriel, both his creative genius and his darker side, was like walking a tightrope.”
“Darker side . . . do you mean Granddad’s bipolar disorder?” I pull back, my voice rising. “Did you ever think what kind of hell he was in? Not knowing he was experiencing manic episodes that were likely treatable? He probably hated himself.”
My father’s open-mouth stare holds for several seconds. “I wish I knew all this then.” He drops his head. “Thought I was the reason he got mean and despondent.”
“Maybe only half the time.” Smirking, I pass him his drink, then step back to the gray couch facing the terrace windows and crack open a sparkling water.
“Do you . . . hate yourself?” His eyes expand.
My dad’s frankness startles me into almost spilling my water.
“I hate having something wrong with me.” I blow out a long breath, my eyes steady on his face. “And that it keeps people away.”
“Like when I ran away from your granddad.” He frowns, swirling the golden-brown liquid in his glass.
“And me.” I gulp.
He doesn’t respond.
“Dad . . .”
“I heard you.” He slides himself to the edge of his seat and downs an inch of his drink, readying himself to leave.
I shift forward. “Um, so . . . when did your relationship with him change?”
“When I told him I didn’t want to join Kershaw & Son.” A muscle flexes in his jaw. “I knew I’d let him down. I couldn’t see myself there, consumed with building an empire I didn’t want.”
“At least you stood up for yourself. Then you met Mom.”
He sighs. “The same day she dropped out of Barnard, unbeknownst to her parents. She was downtown with her friends, celebrating her newfound independence. They walked by a club in the East Village—almost didn’t go inside, it was a true dive, but they heard live music and decided to give it a go.
And there I was on a rickety stage, an unknown country western singer performing the only three songs he knew to a crowd of maybe ten locals.
” He stares off, returning to that night.
“I spotted this tall South Asian beauty in the crowd with gray-green eyes that rivaled the sea, and I never saw another face that night. Sang every song to her. I’ll never forget it.
My first show at the Flaming Flamingo . . .”
“Wait, what? You knew the Gallardos? No way.”
“Oh sure. Basilio and Katia were da bomb—especially her.” He blushes. “Damn shame about Basilio. Heard he was battling cancer and they couldn’t afford to keep the club . . .”
I shake my head. “They died in a car accident last fall. I hired their daughter as an intern this summer.”
“Small world.”
“We kind of got close.” I feel my own blush coming on.
He grins. “If she looks anything like her fly mother, I understand.”
“I’m dreading tomorrow.” Except to see Brynn, even if she ignores me. “It won’t be fun letting people go. Well . . . I’ll enjoy firing a few of them.”
“End of an era. Where do you go next, another agency gig?” He sits back, draining the last of his scotch.
“I’m thinking about college again.”
“Oh?”
“You don’t like that idea?”
“I don’t think you need it.” He smacks his lips.
“I’d like to go. I think I can manage sitting through a class this time.” I roll my eyes, half smiling. “I’ll get you a refill.”
“Small one. Then I should go.” He yawns.
I smile to myself. Having him here is kind of fun. I pick up the bottle of scotch from the bar table. I grip the cap, my back to him. “How about next time you’re in the Tri-State area, you stay with me?”
He doesn’t respond. I close my eyes. A beat later, I pass him his drink.
“Maybe you could see one of my shows when I’m in town.”
I exhale, letting the moment wash over me. “I’ll be there.” My voice cracks.
Dad smiles a little. His eyes well up. He looks at me for several seconds, the corners of his mouth bow. “Your eyes are hers, and the color of your hair . . .” He whistles through his teeth. “She was really something.”
I laugh. “People see you when they see me—same features, but with Mom’s olive skin. They don’t realize I’m half Indian.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save your mother,” he blurts out. “The doctor and nurses tried for over an hour to bring her back. I stood helpless, holding you, whispering prayers into your fuzzy little head . . .” His lips bend funny. He swats the air in front of his face. “Sorry.”
“Dad, you don’t have to hide with me.”
His red-rimmed eyes search my face, then fly upward. “Mia, I’m sorry.”
I look over at the Woman in Black, sitting beside him on the yellow couch. Her eyes light up when he says her name.
“Mom knows, Dad. She knows.”
“I should have been in California with you this last time. I convinced myself that I couldn’t see you tied down with all those electrodes attached to you like Frankenstein or something. Was it awful?”
“It wasn’t bad.” I avert my eyes, still getting used to this new openness between us. “Definitely not Frankenstein. Anyway, Mom was with me.”
He gives me a blank look. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s one of my hallucinations.”
His brows shoot up. “What? You never told me. Wait, what if you’re really clairvoyant—like, able to see dead people—and not schizophrenic?”
“Really, Dad?” I cock my head, pulling a face. “You’d have an easier time believing that?”
“Sadly, I would.” He rubs the sides of his arms. “Are you going to be okay, Micah?”
The floor vibrates under my bare feet, the subway’s rhythmic clacking massaging my soles. “I think I’m ready for whatever comes my way.”
He gives me a wistful smile. “It’s good you’re meeting your mom’s family.”
“Sure are a lot of them compared to yours.”
Dad stares into his drink, looking lost in a memory.
I tilt my head again, trying to catch his eye. “Sucks about Granddad.”
“Yeah . . . sure does. I messed up blaming him for not being the father I needed, and now I’m too late. I swear to you, Micah, I won’t squander the time I have left with you.”
“He’s not completely unaware,” I venture. “You should go see him.”
“I’m waiting for him to forget he hates me.” He laughs a little. “Nah, you’re right. Will you go with me?”
I lay a cotton blanket over my dad on the couch as he snores away. Once I got him to talk about my mother, the guy wouldn’t shut up. Even the Woman in Black grew bored and left. What a strange and wonderful evening. For the first time ever, this place feels like home.
I pick up my phone to set an early alarm so we can get a coffee at Dante’s before he leaves tomorrow.
Hmm, a missed call from Elmsford, New York. Who could that be from?