Coast Road (37 page)

He moved his hand on her head.

"I need her."

"I know. But she isn't here, so we're going to try to work this through together the way she would. Want to tell me about tonight? Or do you want to sleep? " He kept expecting to be tired himself, but he was all keyed up.

She grunted. "I slept in the car. I'm not sleepy now." He thought about putting a light on. But there was something about the foggy dark, something so dense as to be a buffer. "Tell me, then. I want to hear."

"That's because you love knowing"�her voice caught�"what a loser I am."

Fiercely, he said, "You aren't a loser. If you were, you'd still be at some party with kids making fools of themselves, drinking and laughing at nothing and dancing on tables and taking off their clothes�" Her eyes went wide. "How did you know? " "I've been there, sweetie.

Your music may be different from what mine was, and God knows there are more beer labels to choose from these days, but human nature hasn't changed much."

"Did you know Teague would have beer in his car? " "No. I didn't want to know that. It doesn't surprise me, though."

"You didn't like him."

"How could I? He didn't even tell you how pretty you looked. And you looked pretty, Sam�prettier, I'd bet, than most everyone at that prom.

So. Did he just leave you at the phone booth, or what? " "I ran there. He was somewhere . . . blocks away. He probably went back to the party."

"Nice guy, " Jack muttered, but couldn't leave it at that. "If he was cool, he'd have followed you and driven you home. If he was really cool, he'd have kept his hands to himself in the first place. You're a minor.

We're talking statutory rape."

"It didn't get that far. Besides, it wasn't all his fault. I let him, a little." �wvr l Jack had figured that. He took Samantha's hand and kissed it. It smelled of soap, good and clean and healthy. Quietly, he said, "Letting him, a little, is okay as long as you trust the guy and there isn't booze involved. I'm guessing there was more than beer."

"Punch."

"Spiked with vodka." When she didn't deny it, he said, "That was what made you sick. The rule of thumb is that if you have vodka first, the beer's okay. Beer first, and vodka will make you sick. Mind you, I'm not saying drinking's all right. It isn't. Drinking makes people do dumb things.

It makes them do tragic things." His voice rose. "I didn't smell anything on Teague when he got here. When did he start drinking? Was he drinking in the truck? At the end there, was he drunk? " In that split second, Jack heard his father's voice. In the next second, he regained control of himself. "Don't answer, " he said softly.

"It's over and done. And maybe I shouldn't be telling you how to drink and how not to drink. Maybe that's giving the wrong message. Only, kids do drink sometimes, and if I want you safe, you need to know.

Knowledge is the key. It's right up there with experience." He paused. "See, the downside of being a grown-up is that you're held accountable for your actions. Okay, so you weren't raped. You could have been killed if Teague crashed the truck. You could have died of alcohol poisoning, or an overdose of something that someone slipped into that punch. Someone else could have died. That's the kind of thing you carry with you all your life. I don't want that for you, Samantha. I really don't. A big part of growing up is learning when to be cautious. It's realizing that there are consequences to everything you do." She was quiet for so long that he wondered if she had fallen asleep, and part of him felt that was fine. He liked the note he had ended on.

For a father muddling his way through, he wasn't doing so bad.

He should have known better.

In the same quiet, very grown-up voice he had used, Samantha asked, "How does all that fit in with the divorce? Are you accountable for your actions in a marriage, too? " It was a minute before he said, "Yes."

"Then you accept the blame for that? " "No. It takes two to make a marriage, and two to break it." Which was what Hope said Rachel had said, and quite an admission on his part.

Two weeks before, he would have blamed the breakup of the marriage on Rachel. She was the one who had walked out.

Only, her leaving San Francisco was a symptom, not a cause. He could concede that now. The cause of the breakup went deeper. Rachel may have been abandoned in the broadest sense. He may have put his work first.

"But how could you guys just let it go? " Samantha asked, and there were tears in her voice ageun.

"We didn't."

"You did, " she cried with a vehemence that reminded him of something.

Katherine had said that she was obsessed with the divorce. Katherine might be right. "You didn't argue about it, you just split, " she charged. "What was your side of the story? " He wasn't sure he should say, not without Rachel there. But Samantha sounded like she needed an answer. "I felt, " he began, considering it, "that your mother didn't want me. That we had grown apart, maybe needed different things. I was tied to the city because of work, and that was the last place your mother wanted to be."

"Then it was about place? " Two weeks ago he might have said that, might have boiled down the cause of the break to a word or two. But it was more complex. He saw that now.

"Place was only a symptom of other things."

"But you loved her."

"Yes."

"Do you still? " He thought about the hand-around-the-heart feeling he experienced walking into that hospital room every day.

"Probably."

"So why didn't youfight to keep her? Wasn't it worth it?

Weren't we worth it? " The question stunned him. "Yes. Yes."

"I kept thinking about that when I was waiting for you to come get me.

I kept thinking you were right. We weren't worth it. Me, especially me."

"Are you crazy? " I' "See? " she cried. "You'd never say that to Hope."

"No, I'd say other things to Hope, because Hope and you are different people. Different. Not better or worse."

"She's lovable and I'm not."

"But I do love you."

"I'm not lovable. I say too much."

"That's one of the things that makes you lovable. I always know where I stand. That's a real plus in a relationship. Honesty.

Trust.

Ease. Well, sometimes we don't have ease, you and me, but that's because you're your age and I'm mine, and you let me know when I'm being . . .

being . . . " "Old." He sighed. "I guess. So, see, we can talk about that, too." She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

"I couldn't talk to Teague. Not the way I wanted to. I was afraid he'd think I was a kid."

"Teague's crud, " Jack said. "You can do better, Sam."

"I thought he was better. Shows how much I know."

"You knew enough to get the hell away from the guy when things started to get out of control. Didn't you? " When she didn't instantly answer, he felt another moment's doubt. "The truth, Sam. Didn't you?

Or, " he pushed himself to say, "do we need to talk about the facts of life? " She shot him a glance. "Mom already has, but I didn't do it with Teague. He wanted to. That was when I left."

"See? You learned. That's what growing up is about. What went wrong with Brendan and Lydia? " Unexpectedly, Samantha started crying again.

When she tried to turn onto her side away from him, he rolled her right back.

"Talk it out, sweetheart." Between sobs, she said, "I blew them off, so now I don't have them �and I won't have Pam and Heather, because Teague must have gone back there and told them what happened. I'm not going to be able to show my face in school again, not ever. I am such fuckup."

"No. No, you're not." But she wouldn't be assuaged. "I messed up, just like I messed up with Mom. If it hadn't been for me, she wouldn't have had the accident."

"How do you figure that? " "We had a fight that afternoon."

"What happened in the afternoon has nothing to do�" "It does, because she was thinking about the fight and brought her book to the studio, and if she hadn't had to get it there later, she would have left the house earlier."

"Don't do that, Sam, " he warned. "If you do, I have to."

"Have to what? " "Blame me. Do you think it hasn't occurred to me that if I'd been around more for your mother in San Francisco, she wouldn't have moved down here in the first place? If she hadn't moved down here, she wouldn't be in that hospital. But it doesn't do any good to think that way. It's done.

Over. Not your fault or my fault, but the fault of the woman who was driving the other car."

"She's dead, isn't she? " He figured that if Samantha was old enough to drink beer and vodka and do God knew what with a boy she'd never dated before, she was old enough to know the truth. "Yes. She's dead.

So we have to let it go, Sam. We can't blame her, and we can't blame us. We have to do what we can to help your mother wake up. And we have to carry on and move forward here.

I think you should call Lydia later."

"I can't. She's not going to want to talk to me! I was horrible to her! " "You could apologize."

"That wouldn't work."

"Why not? " "Because."

"That's not a real answer, Samantha. Try again."

"She won't want me back."

"Do you want her back? " "Yes. She's my friend."

"More so than Pam? " Samantha thought about that. "Yes. I feel safer with Lydia."

"Tell her that." When she didn't speak, he said, "That's your strength, expressing yourself. It's a precious thing, Sam. Not everyone has what it takes inside to do it. I know it's hard, but the important things in life are. You have to put yourself out there and risk the possibility that she's feeling so hurt that she won't want any part of you, but I don't think that'll happen. Lydia strikes me as a forgiving person." Samantha started to cry again.

"What's wrong now? " he asked, because he thought they had it all worked out.

"I miss Mom." Feeling a wrenching inside, he smoothed the hair back from her face.

"Me, too, " he said and realized that he did, very much.

HE CONTINUED to stroke her hair until she quieted. Then he heard something new and went to the window. It sounded like rain. Only it wasn't raining.

Samantha came up beside him, wrapped in her quilt. "It's fog feet. " Fogfeet. That had to be a Rachel expression.

"It's like, " she said, "when the fog is so thick that it makes noise moving through the forest." He looked at her. "Want to go outside?

Nh. You feel lousy."

"I'll go, " she said.

So they went outside, Jack in his paint-spattered sweat suit, Samantha in her nightgown and quilt. They were both barefooted�crazy, Jack knew, but somehow feeling the earth beneath their feet was important.

They didn't go far, just to a level spot where the tree trunks rose and narrowed and stretched toward branches that spawned needles, and the sky.

They didn't move, didn't speak. They felt the moisture on their faces, a gentle curative, and listened to the steady, soothing sound of fog feet, and it occurred to Jack that this was a gift, standing here with his daughter, after the night that had been. He tried to think of when he had last felt as content, and realized it had been in these same woods. Then he had been with Hope. Now Samantha.

"I used to stand like this with Mom, " she whispered so softly that he might have missed it if he hadn't been so close. She didn't say anything else. She didn't have to, because Rachel was suddenly with them, so strong a presence that Jack actually looked behind him, half expecting her to take form from the fog.

Did he still love her? There was no probably about it. And saying that he missed her told only half the story. The truth�realized, admitted only now, with the fog so thick that only the largest things in life were visible�was that he had been missing her for months.

HE WOKE UP Sunday morning, feeling her in bed with him, memory was so strong. Her hand moved on his chest, side to side through a matting of hair, and down his belly. The soft, sexy voice in his ear said that she loved it when he was this hard, so hard that he shook. He smelled the warm woman of her, kissed the wet woman in her, and came in a climax so cruel that for long minutes after, he lay with an arm over his eyes, breathing hard, swearing again and again.

His heartbeat had barely begun to steady when the peal of the phone sent it through the roof. Sunday morning at eight, with Samantha and Hope safe in bed?

"Jack? It's Kara. Rachel's thrown a clot." chapter eighteen.

" THROWN A CLOT. What does that mean? " Samantha asked. They were in the car, speeding back to Monterey. She looked pale, almost green.

Jack suspected that had as much to do with it being the morning after as with Rachel's condition. He had given her aspirin before they left.

She was holding her head still against the headrest.

Hope had her lucky boots back on and was leaning forward between their seats, waiting for his answer.

He tried to repeat the gist of what Kara had told him. "On rare occasions, a broken bone�in Mom's case, her leg�creates a clot, a wad that enters the bloodstream and moves through the veins. Sometimes it gets stuck in the head or the heart. Sometimes it gets stuck in the lungs. That's where your mom's got stuck."