Not in the Heart (12 page)

C
HAPTER
18

I parked under a row of evergreens, duct-taped the plastic trash bag over the open window, and found Abby—I mean Abigail—already seated in a booth.

I threw on the old TV charm and told her how good it was to see her and how beautiful she looked and what a spitting image she was of her mother, and she just stared at my wound and asked if it was infected.

“How did you get that, anyway? Wait, don't tell me. I don't think I want to know.”

The server took our orders and pleasantly memorized every change Abby made, which was also like her mother. There wasn't a menu on the planet that couldn't be improved upon by a substitution here or a deletion of a certain ingredient there. Making the meal your own, I guess, but sometimes it got to me. Especially when she didn't want croutons on the salad we were going to share. I decided not to let that bother me and we continued.

“So your mother sent you to rescue me?” I said after the breadsticks arrived.

“She didn't send me for anything. She needs her car back. She has a life, you know. Or at least part of one. It puts a serious damper on a person's lifestyle when you take away her mode of transportation.”

“Your mother's a big girl. You don't have to run interference for her. You shouldn't take care of us.”

She stared at me with those brown eyes as she pulled on her raspberry lemonade. “Maybe I feel that way because you did such a lousy job of being a dad. Maybe I feel I have to run interference because you're out of control. Maybe I feel like I'm the adult and you're the kid instead of the other way around.”

Wow, don't hold back because I'm your dear old dad.

“I'm sorry you feel that way,” I said.

“I'm sure you are. But that's the problem. Your sorrow only covers your narcissism.”

“I thought you were a journalism major, not psychology.”

“You're not really sorry; you're sorry I feel this way. You're sorry I'm upset. You're sorry about everything but what you've done to your family. You don't
own
any of your sorrow; you put it on us.”

Her voice was getting more animated and people around us were noticing. I used my most calm voice, even and measured in tone. “You're right. I should just be sorry.”

That sent her over the edge. She gripped the table with both hands and scooted forward, her knuckles white. This was a long time in coming.

“I'm sure you want me to say you've been a great father and a great man and all those awards you brought home make you a wonderful humanitarian. But I was thinking about your life as I drove down here and there's a common denominator.”

So it was a math minor.

“You want to know what it is?” she said.

I wiped all irony and sarcasm away. “Please, enlighten me.”

“You are a taker. Anything good you've done, reporting from whatever far-flung place you've been assigned, you never gave, you always took. You took the words of the earthquake victim. You took the pictures of people devastated by wars. You gave the story, but it always came with a price and that price was never paid by you. It was somebody else who had to ante up. And it was the same with Mom and Aiden and me. You provided for us, at least until recently, but every time you came around, you always took more than you gave.”

Her hands shook and she grabbed the green napkin as if it were the safety restraint on a wild amusement park ride. There was real emotion here and I let her words hang for a moment as I set aside my stiff and tasteless breadstick.

Searching for words, some way to get through the anger that her words dredged up, I tried to get past myself and my guilt. “Abigail, what do you need from me? What can I give you?” It sounded hollow coming out.

The server came with our salad and placed it between us, then grated some mozzarella cheese into an empty plate so I could spread it at my leisure.

“Can I get you anything else?” she said pleasantly.

Yes, another life, a heart for my son, Mickey Luchesi off my back, a marriage salvaged—any of that.

“We're fine,” I said.

After she walked away, Abby said, “You want to say that again? I think I might be in shock. I thought you'd be defensive and make a joke.”

Deep breath. Serious. “I see this differently than you, but you're right about everything you've said. And if I tell you I'm sorry, it's going to sound like I'm just placating. I don't want to do that.”

“Thanks,” she said softly, looking at her empty salad plate.

“I know I've hurt you. And probably the best thing to do now would be to just listen. So tell me. Anything you want. And what I can do to help.”

She put some salad on her plate and waved a hand at the past like it was gnat. “You think it's that easy? I tell you what to do and you make up for everything? There's no magic wand here, Dad. It's taken you a long time to dig the hole you're in with us and with your life.”

“I know that. I'm trying hard to get things together.”

She cursed. “That's what Philip says.”

“Philip?”

“You are so clueless. My boyfriend. The guy I've been dating for two years. The love of my life. Everything you haven't been to me.”

“And you're figuring out he's as big of a jerk as I am?”

“I'm figuring out there are similarities to the species, yes. But there are glimmers of hope with him.”

“Do you give Philip suggestions about how he can better himself?”

“Fortunately he doesn't need me to tell him. He figures it out on his own. Like real men do.”

She could turn from gentle and sweet to acerbic again, just like her mother. Endemic to that species, perhaps.

“Sounds like Philip is a real catch. Is he wealthy? Maybe he could help us with a loan.”

“His family comes from a mixture of coal miners and truck drivers.”

“Nothing wrong with hard work.”

“He'll be the first to graduate from college in his immediate family.”

“Good for him.”

“He offered me every cent of what his family has saved. And don't ask me how much because I know what you'd do with it.” She shook her head. “That's what you did with the Conley payment, right? You've lost it already.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Let's say it's a strong hunch, especially when you ask me for cash in the casino parking lot. Is it true?”

I wiped my mouth, though it was more of a nervous reaction. Where was the entrée when you needed it?

“Things are a little tight right now.”

She took a sip of her lemonade and moved in for the kill. “You asked me what I needed. If you were serious about that and not blowing smoke, here's something. Tell me the truth. I ask you a question, and you don't flinch or hesitate. You don't hedge or make up something or try to get me to laugh.”

“Okay, you got it.”

“Did you lose all of the Conley payment?”

“Yes.”

She paused, staring at me. “How did you get the scar?”

Deep breath. “I owe some money to a man in New Orleans. He sent a couple of his friends to tell me I needed to pay him as soon as possible.”

“How much do you owe them?”

I told her. Her mouth dropped.

“It's going to be okay,” I said. “It'll work out.”

“Dad, you have a serious problem. This is not something that just works itself out.”

“My first priority right now is Aiden and seeing that he gets the operation. Part of that is writing the Conley story. For whatever reason, that's what I have on my plate. And this time I'm not just doing it for career advancement or personal aggrandizement, as you probably think, but to help your mother and brother.”

She did that thing with her eyes, the incredulous young woman who laughs and casts her eyes around for something they can light on, like the extra-virgin olive oil. “I'm sorry, Dad. I'm still back on how much you owe and whether those two guys might be out in the parking lot right now hooking something up to your ignition.”

“I took care of it. You don't have to worry about them.”

Our entrées came, but sadly neither of us were interested.

“You saw him, right?”

“Yeah, I went to the penitentiary and had a good chat.”

“No, not Conley. Aiden.”

“Yeah, I saw him.”

There was something more than vulnerable about her face now. Fear mixed with sadness and hurt. “I've never seen him this . . . close, you know?”

I put a hand on hers and she pulled away. It was like trying to comfort a frightened bird. All she could do was protect herself and I couldn't blame her.

“He's a fighter,” I said. “Always has been. It's going to be all right.”

She leaned forward, squinting like she was three. “How can you say that? He could have gone into cardiac arrest ten minutes ago and you'd never know. We could be attending his funeral this weekend, unless you find a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk and get a poker game going at the mortuary.”

“That's cruel, Abby.”

She ignored the misuse of her name. “Seriously, is there anything you'd consider more important than gambling? Is there anything you wouldn't toss under the bus in order to get the high of throwing your life away to people you don't even know? People who just want your money? How do you gamble while your son is dying?”

“It's taken a long time to get to this point. It's not easy to control.”

She pushed the marinara sauce and noodles around her plate. “I'll bet it isn't.”

If I were more of a man, I would have let her grill me about the feeling, about why I got lost at the casino. Instead I said, “Tell me about school. How close were you to finishing?”

“Twenty credits. This quarter and summer school and I would have been good. But when the money runs out and your dear old dad has spent enough at the craps table for a doctorate, the kid's just out of luck, I guess.”

With all the generosity, hope, and honesty I could muster, I said, “I'm really sorry for what you've been through. For what I've put you through. I'm going to make it up to you. You'll finish school. I promise you that. And I'll be there to walk you down the aisle. All the way to Philip or whomever. And Aiden is going to be standing beside him as best man. We're going to get all of this behind us and start living again.”

“You can't wait to start living, Dad.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you wait to start living, it'll be gone. You have to start now.”

It sounded like something she read from a motivational book, but as clichéd as it was, she was right.

“What about you and Mom?”

Strangely, of all the things on the plate to fix, that one seemed the most unlikely to work out.

“I think I may have put her through too much.”

“Dad, you two were made for each other. I know she can go off the deep end on the religion thing. She's done it to me, too. Praying for me on the phone, sending me books and links to sermons. But she loves us. You know that.”

I nodded.

“You can't just flush all those years together.”

“I don't want to. But I don't know how to right the ship. And we've been sinking a long time.”

“So you're telling me you can help get Aiden his transplant, you can pay off all that money, kick your gambling addiction, pay for my schooling, but you can't put your marriage back together? That's the one thing too tough to handle?”

“I want us to stay together, but it takes two people to make a marriage work.”

“Dad, she's into the God thing and God supposedly doesn't like divorce, though you'd never know it from the statistics of church people.”

“That's supposed to give me hope?”

“I'm saying that Mom is serious about the faith thing. All she needs to see is a little movement.”

“This Conley book was her idea. She's the only reason I'm doing it. That's movement.”

Abby sat in thought and I wondered how she and Philip spent their evenings. Did they have these kinds of conversations? Had they been intimate? Of course they had. Were they living together? What kind of a guy would she go for, and was it partly because of the deficiency she had in a father?

“Dad, I don't know how to get you two back together. That shouldn't be my job. But you've never given up on anything. Whatever you've wanted to do, you've gone after.”

“Kind of reminds me of someone else I know.”

She looked up and smiled. “Stop it. You're not going to win me over with compliments.”

“No, there's nothing you've ever wanted to do that you couldn't. Plays at school, the spelling bees . . .”

“You don't know all the stuff I've tried and failed at.”

“Welcome to the human race.”

The server came and took our plates, just as I was getting hungry. But it was cold anyway.

Abby scooted forward. “You haven't asked why I'm here. Why I wanted to find you instead of waiting at the house until four in the morning.”

“I assumed Mom sent you. You said she needs the car.”

“She does. But when I told her my idea, she said I should go for it.”

“Which was what?” I had the distinct feeling that I wasn't going to like her idea.

“Since I can't finish school right now, I do an internship.”

“Good. I like it.”

“With you.”

“What?”

“I help with your book. You have to write it fast and I can do background and investigate, do the legwork while you write. It's the perfect way for us to get back in touch. Work together.”

“I thought Conley was a creep and you couldn't stand the job I've done at being your father.”

“So? I learn how to put a book project together and you get some time with your only daughter. It's a win-win.”