Chapter Twenty-Seven Lily #2
My cheeks feel waxy from the tears, and my limbs are still shaky. I wrap my arms around my legs, as if I can curl into myself and disappear.
“I’m not so sure about that,” I say, my mind flitting to Henry, Theo, the mess of this entire summer. “I still have some growing to do.”
My dad smiles. “Do you think you could forgive me? Not today, but someday?”
I think about it. It’s not enough. This one apology certainly isn’t enough to make up for a lifetime of his absences: the school dances, and soccer games, and art shows he’s missed.
Rose has given me everything I need. She has single-handedly raised me from the ground up.
I do not need my father, but maybe I can still afford to let him in a little.
It’s not enough. But it’s something. It’s a start. And maybe a start is better than nothing.
“Let’s try.” I return his smile.
“What are you doing the rest of today?” he asks eagerly. “I have to return to LA tomorrow for a meeting with my lawyers. I’ve already outstayed my welcome here. But do you have plans this morning?”
Today is my first shift back at work where my schedule will align with Theo’s again. We’ve barely seen each other in the week since our date. I’m worried he’s avoiding me.
We talked about heavy subjects, after all: loss and tragedy.
I never would have guessed that behind his easygoing demeanor lived such a heavy weight.
It certainly wasn’t the most romantic topic, so I wasn’t surprised when we didn’t kiss at the end of the night.
We were friends first—this was our natural state.
Still, perhaps he regrets opening up. I was looking forward to seeing him at work and sussing out his feelings.
“No pressure,” my dad says now. “If you have plans, it’s okay. Of course.”
I know I should go to work, but then again, it would be nice to spend the day with my dad, getting to know each other again. Life is short; we know this now. That’s what Lottie used to say: “Life is too short, even when it’s long.”
So much can go wrong, you might as well savor the good moments while you can. You might as well accept the olive branch when it’s extended.
“No worries,” I tell my dad. “I’ll call out sick.”
A few hours later that afternoon, I pull up to the sandy parking lot of Cisco Brewers, driving over the deep ridges in the ground. The hood of my car points in the air nose first like the bow of a ship.
This afternoon, everyone with a morning shift from Great Harbor is expected to come to Cisco after work, the local brewery out near Bartlett’s Farm.
After calling out sick to spend time with my father, I considered skipping, but I want to see Theo.
Dad and I spent the morning together just walking around ’Sconset and catching up.
I showed him the cliff walk where I took Thomas, and I filled him in on everything that has happened this summer.
“I think he’s still in love with her,” he said when we reached the end of the cliff. The long drop was only feet away, and the ocean expanded into what seemed like infinity.
“But what about the thing with Josie?”
“You’re not sure that what you saw was a date, correct?”
I shook my head no.
“Maybe it’s not as simple as it seems. But I’ll tell you this much, for as long as I’ve known your mother, she’s been in love with that man.
Even when we were happy, I could tell she was thinking of someone else.
I’d bet he feels the same.” At the next part, he grinned.
“Rose is not the kind of woman you move on from. Take it from my experience.”
I wondered what he meant, since he was the one who cheated, but decided to drop it. It was nice to get along, and as I confided in him, I realized what a relief it was to talk to someone else about the situation. Because of his own mistakes, he was oddly easy to confide in, devoid of judgment.
“Do you think I’m a horrible person for getting involved?” I asked.
“I think you’re the best daughter a mother could ask for,” he said. I hated how much the praise meant to me.
Now I park the car by the fence to the farm, walking down the pathway that is half sand and half dirt, and enter the line for the brewery. Sometimes on holiday weekends, the line can stretch to the street, but today, there are only a handful of people ahead of me.
Inside, past the wooden barns where they brew the beer, is a stone gathering space with picnic benches and two bars.
Food trucks crowd the exterior: lobster rolls, a pizza oven, a raw bar with shucked oysters and tuna poke.
There’s a stage where a live band is now playing a country song I don’t recognize, and a pagoda near the garden in case it rains or you need an escape from the sun.
I spot the tennis group to the left of the stage, half-covered by the pagoda. Emily is in a sunlit seat, shading her forehead with her right hand. Theo is next to her, and the two of them are talking close. Abruptly, I feel nervous. I decide to get a drink first.
The brewery distills their own liquor and they’re famous for their blueberry lemonade cocktail, a deep purple-blue spirit that tastes vaguely like cough syrup.
I order myself a blueberry lemonade. It’s delicious but the color is dangerous—how many pairs of white jeans have I ruined here over the years?
I’m about to approach the Great Harbor crew when I see another familiar party: Henry and a few of his guy friends.
“Lily!” He waves when he sees me. He walks over to the bar and grabs me by the shoulder. He’s rough enough that the blue liquid nearly escapes from the edge of my plastic cup. “Lily, I’m so happy it’s you!”
His eyes are half-lidded, and he looks somewhere between consciousness and elsewhere, like a sleepwalker who is still deciding whether or not to wake up. “I have to tell you something,” he says. “Why didn’t you answer my text?”
It’s the drunkest I’ve ever seen him, and after the dramatic morning of reconciliation I’ve had, I’m not in the mood.
He kind of reminds me of my father the few times I’ve seen him drink, the way he’s stumbling and the dead, distant look in his eyes.
I only saw my father like that a handful of times when he relapsed during one particularly bad Christmas and an ill-fated surprise birthday trip that ended with seven-year-old me in tears and his white T-shirt covered in a disturbing mixture of vanilla cake and punch.
For most of high school, I never touched alcohol out of fear I would turn out the same.
“Are you okay?” I ask, concerned. He’s tottering like an unstable toddler.
“It’s my bachelor party week!” he cries, slurring his words. “Isn’t that exciting?”
I look around at his friends, who are a few feet away, sitting on barrels.
There’s about seven of them in total, most of whom I recognize, except for an irritated-looking blond man who is glaring in our direction.
He has slicked-back hair and looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him.
I assume he must be the fiancée’s brother.
“That’s very exciting,” I tell him in a friendly, maternal voice. “You should join your group and celebrate.”
He places both hands on my shoulders. I can feel the weight of him as he uses me like some sort of human crutch. To our left, Theo is at the table with the tennis staff, his blue eyes watching intently. I wave, but he looks away.
“I’m good, I’m so good. I’m getting married, Lily-pad! Can you believe it?” yells Henry into my ear. “You know, I used to think it would be me and you up there, but I think it all worked out good in the end. You know?”
Someone has drawn their number on his arm with the message “If lost, call this number!”
“That’s great, Henry. I’m happy for you,” I tell him, and as I’m saying it, it rings true.
Looking at him now, I can tell that he’s a different person than the one I fell in love with.
He’s not my Henry anymore. His hair has that foreign crop.
His face is puffier. His eyes no longer stare into my soul like they know everything about me either.
Instead, he looks at me like I’m a stranger, which maybe I am.
I’ve changed since I met him. Heck, I’ve changed this summer alone.
“I like the bangs, by the way,” he says. I touch them, realizing that they’ve grown, too. They’re just below my eyebrows now.
He’s not perfect, but he deserves happiness. As does Mary.
I look for a way to strategically extricate myself from his grasp without him face-planting into the dirt.
“I love you.” He lowers his voice, looking around conspiratorially.
He stumbles again. I catch him by the armpits.
“But I don’t think we would’ve made each other very happy.
I always felt like I was disappointing you or something, I don’t know.
Or like you didn’t think I was good enough. I never feel that way about Mary.”
He leans back a little, the pressure on my shoulders lightening. I know he’s right. Still, it hurts to hear. We just weren’t right for each other. It’s as simple as that. With the nostalgia veil momentarily lifted, I can see that clearly.
“I’m happy for you, Henry,” I repeat. “You deserve to be with someone who appreciates you.”
He leans in and gives me a fat, wet kiss on the cheek, like a dog. I resist the temptation to immediately wipe off the slime. “You deserve it, too.”
Despite the drunk accent on his words, the sentiment strikes me as profound.
It’s as if the alcohol has burned away all of our complicated emotions down to the simplest, rawest ingredients.
I remember what the psychic said about my soulmate at the fundraising event, but psychics can be wrong.
Psychics are often wrong, actually. That’s kind of their whole business.
“Hey.” Henry turns around, suddenly alert. He looks down at his chest, dazed, as if surprised to discover himself out in the world and not in his bed. “Is there something on my arm?” He rubs the skin but the words stay in place.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell him. “Have fun.”