Days Like This (12 page)

“Also correct.”

“Jesus.”  She sat up and screwed
the cap back on the bottle of Jim Beam.  Handed it back to Luke.  And said, “I
think I have a headache.”

When he got home from his morning
run, Casey had breakfast going:  sizzling bacon, fresh-sliced cantaloupe,
scrambled eggs, and pancakes loaded with lush, ripe blackberries she’d picked
just after sunrise.  The way she cooked, it was a wonder they weren’t both morbidly
obese.  He snagged a strip of crisp bacon from the paper towel where it was
drying and went to the refrigerator to take out the milk.  He was stirring it
into his coffee when Paige came out of her bedroom, shuffled past him without
speaking, and slammed the bathroom door behind her.

He met Casey’s eyes.  “Little
Miss Sunshine,” she said.

Grimacing, he returned the milk
carton to the fridge and reached for another strip of bacon.  “Hey, you!” his
wife said, playfully slapping his hand away.  “Leave some for breakfast.”

“I’m a growing boy.  And you’re
just scared that I’ll take your share.”

“Make yourself useful while I
finish this.  Set the table.”

He popped the pilfered strip of
bacon into his mouth and gathered up plates and flatware, glasses and napkins. 
In the bathroom, Paige was running water in the sink.  He arranged the table,
found the salt and pepper and a dish of softened butter and set them in a
splash of honey-colored sunlight next to the vase of flowers she’d cut from the
garden while she was out picking berries at the crack of dawn.  He had no idea
what the tiny blue and purple blossoms were, but fresh flowers on the breakfast
table were classic Casey.

The bathroom door opened, and
Paige came out, dressed in jeans, a white tee shirt, and red suspenders.  She’d
made an attempt to tame her hair, but he knew from firsthand experience that it
was pretty much a hopeless task.  She yawned, sniffed bacon-scented air, and
said, “I usually just eat cereal and toast.”

“That’s because you haven’t
tasted my wife’s pancakes.”

The kid shrugged, pulled out her
chair, and collapsed into it as though every bone in her body had dissolved,
leaving her spineless and limp.  Casey brought the food to the table, and they
sat down to eat.  Paige eyed the scrambled eggs with disdain, took a single
slice of cantaloupe, and studied the stack of pancakes.  “What are those purple
things?”

“Blackberries,” Casey said. 
“Just picked this morning.  They’re out of this world.”

“I don’t think I like
blackberries.”

Casey raised an eyebrow.  “You
don’t like blackberries?”

Paige squared her jaw.  “I’ve
never had them.”

Rob wondered briefly just what
kind of mother Sandy had been, until he remembered the price of supermarket
blackberries and realized she’d probably been a frugal one.  “Well, then,” he
said, “you’re in for a treat.”

Paige didn’t look convinced, but
she helped herself to a single pancake and smothered it with syrup.  “Butter?”
Casey offered.

Paige shook her head.  “That
stuff will kill you before you’re fifty.”

He and Casey exchanged glances
before he shrugged and smeared his pancakes with artery-clogging saturated fat.

Paige sliced her pancake with her
fork, pulled out a blackberry, and nibbled at it warily.  Eyes focused on her
plate, she ate in silence.  The tension around the table lay heavy and thick,
in stark contrast to their usual relaxed meals.  He glanced at his wife.  She
raised her eyebrows and gave him a brief smile.  “So,” she said to his
daughter, “what do you think of the blackberries?”

Paige shrugged.  “They’re okay.”

“If you want to make me a list of
the foods you like, I’ll be happy to stock the pantry with your favorites.”

“Whatever.”

Casey cleared her throat.  “Where’d
you go last night with the boys?”

Paige raised her head, coolly met
her stepmother’s eyes, then went back to eating.  “Nowhere special.”

“I’ve been thinking.  School
starts in just a few weeks.  I thought maybe we could go school shopping at the
mall.  All three of us.  We could make a day of it.”

Paige threw down her fork and
scraped back her chair.  “Why don’t you just back off?  You’re not my frigging
mother!  You will
never
be
my frigging mother!  So why don’t you
just stop pretending, and leave me the hell alone!”  She staggered to her feet
and slammed out of the house.

In the silence, the clock
ticked.  For an instant, his wife’s face looked as though she’d been slapped.  
“Goddamn it,” he said.

“It’s all right.  She’s hurting.”

“It’s not all right, and hurting
is not a valid excuse to lash out at you for no reason.”

“I’m fine.  Let it go.”

He squared his jaw, studied her
face, considered his options.  “No,” he said, and shoved back his chair.

She set down her napkin.  “Rob,
don’t—”

But her protest came too late. 
He was already out the door and circling the old farmhouse through the lush
beauty of a late-summer morning.  He found his daughter on the back porch,
huddled on the swing, looking as miserable as he felt.  When he rounded the
corner, she glanced at him briefly, then went back to staring off into space.

He climbed the steps to the porch
slowly, sat down on the swing, leaving a good distance between them.  Leaned
back, propped his feet on the porch railing, and began lazily rocking.

“Look,” he said.  “This is an
awkward situation we’ve been thrown into.  I know how you must feel about
losing your mother—”

“You don’t know a goddamn thing
about how I feel.”

He hesitated, considered her
words, realized she was right.  “Fine,” he said.  “I probably don’t.  Both of
my parents are still alive.  But I’ve lost people I cared for.  I’ve felt the
pain of loss, so maybe I do know a little bit.  And because of that, I’m trying
to give you the benefit of the doubt.  But there are lines we don’t cross, and
you just crossed one.”

She glanced at him from the
corner of her eye, but said nothing.

“You will not speak to my wife
like that again.  Ever.  I don’t care how much you wallow in self-pity, it’s
not an excuse to be rude to her.  That woman has been nothing but kind and
gracious to you, and you owe her an apology.  I may not know what you’re going
through, but let me tell you, little girl, she does.  She lost her mother at
fifteen, her daughter at twenty-nine, and her husband at thirty-one.  If there’s
anybody in this godforsaken place that you might ever want in your corner, it’s
her, because she’s been there, done that.  And survived it all.”

He was met by a stony silence.

“Look at it from her point of
view,” he said.  “She’s trying to rebuild her life after absolute devastation. 
Then she finds out that the yahoo she just married sowed a few more wild oats
than she’d ever guessed, and now, surprise!  It’s a bouncing baby girl.  Only the
kid’s fifteen years old.  Talk about shaking things up.  And you know what?  A
lot of women would’ve said, ‘You’re on your own, buddy.’  A lot of women would
have booted me out on my ass.  But she didn’t.  Even when I was questioning the
wisdom of taking you in, she was already sizing up bedrooms and mentally
redecorating.  You know why?  Because that’s the way she rolls.  She’s a good
person, the best person I’ve ever known, and it never even occurred to her to
question taking in somebody else’s kid to raise.  Even this morning, after you
were unforgivably snotty to her, she told me to let it go.  Because she knows
how bad you’re hurting inside, and it’s breaking her heart.  That’s the kind of
woman she is.

“So if you have anything to say
to her, you will act like a mature, civilized human being.  If she offers you
something you don’t want, you’ll just say, ‘No, thank you’ and leave it at
that.  Is that understood?”

“Fine.  Are we done now?”

He leaned back on his tailbone
and clasped his hands behind his head.  “You know,” he said, “I’m going to tell
you something about me, something you could use against me if you ever wanted
to.  But I’m telling you anyway, because I trust that you have enough integrity
to not do that.”

“Don’t trust me.  You’ll be
disappointed.”

“Oh, I don’t know.  You act
tough, but I have this feeling that underneath that hard shell, there’s a soft,
marshmallow center.”

She snorted.

“Everybody has a weakness,
right?  Something they can’t control?  Something that controls them?  For some
people, it’s drugs, or booze, or greed.  For some of us, it’s something a lot
simpler.  You know what my weakness is?”  He closed his eyes, felt the warmth
of the sun on his face.  “It’s that woman in there.  If you want to hurt me,
the quickest and easiest way is through her.  You stick a knife in her, I’m the
one who bleeds.” 

They were both silent, the only
sounds the buzzing of insects and the twittering of birds.  “There are three
billion women on this planet, give or take,” he said, “but there’s only one of
her.  And for me, that woman is
it
.  There are no others.  There’ve been
two things that defined my life.  One is my music.  The other is the way I feel
about her.  And for the most part, they’ve been tangled together from the
beginning.”  He opened his eyes, crossed his ankles on the railing.  “That
woman is what keeps me upright and breathing.  She always has been.  So if you
want to know who your old man really is, kiddo, I’m just a washed-up old guitar
player who’d gladly lay down his life for the woman he’s loved since he was
twenty years old.”

“I suppose there’s some kind of
lesson buried in there somewhere.”

He smiled, leaned his head back
and studied the porch ceiling.  “You ever go running?”

“Running?” she echoed, as if he’d
said something foul.

“Like it or not, kiddo, you’re
built just like me.  Long and lean.  That’s what they call a runner’s body.”

“And your point is?”

He turned his head.  “I go
running every morning.  Rain or shine.  I think you’d make an outstanding
running partner.”

Various emotions flickered across
her face:  disbelief, uncertainty, disdain.  And back to disbelief.  “You’re
serious.”

“You just put on loose clothes,
your most comfortable pair of sneakers, and you put one foot in front of the
other, and you sweat and grunt and gasp for breath until the endorphins kick
in.  Then it gets good.”

“Endorphins.”

“Way better for the psyche than
happy pills.  Runner’s high.  Makes you feel good.  Legally.”

“Is this supposed to be some kind
of father/daughter bonding ritual?”

“Do I look like a manipulative
guy?  I just thought you might take to running.”

She narrowed her eyes.  “Why are
you being nice to me?”

“Because, like it or not, you’re
my kid.  I’m stuck with you, and you’re stuck with me.  That’s what they call
family.  And I think everybody deserves a second chance.  Which is why we’re
going back into the house, and you’re going to apologize to Casey, and we’re going
to move on from there.  If we’re lucky, maybe we can still salvage breakfast. 
If she hasn’t already tossed it in the trash.”

“Fine.”

They found Casey in the kitchen,
scrubbing industriously at the stove top.  Their uneaten breakfast still sat on
the table.  He cleared his throat.  “I believe Paige has something to say to
you.”

Casey paused in her scrubbing, turned
slowly, waited.  Stiffly, Paige said, “I’m sorry I was rude to you.  And if you
still want to, I’d like to go shopping with you.”

“Apology accepted,” Casey said. 
“Now, let’s eat breakfast, before it’s inedible.”

Paige nodded, sat, and began
eating.  He met his wife’s eyes.  One corner of her mouth turned up, ever so
slightly, and she gave him an almost imperceptible nod of approval.

And over his daughter’s head, he
shot her a wink.

***

He hadn’t expected much to come
of their little chat, so when he came downstairs the next morning, he was
surprised to see Paige waiting for him in the kitchen, dressed for running.

“Don’t think this means we’re friends
or anything,” his daughter said as she tightened the lace to her sneaker. 
“Because it’s nothing like that.”

“Of course not.”

“Running’s good for your health.” 
She finished with the first foot, and swapped it for the other.

“Absolutely.”

“And if you don’t have your
health,” she said, tugging at her laces, “what do you have?”

He nodded gravely.  “I used to
smoke.  A pack a day.”

She looked up, surprised.  “You
did?”

“I did.  Then, about five years
ago, Casey badgered me into running with her.  It was torture at first.  I
could barely make it to the end of the block.  But she was a true friend, the
best kind, the kind that doesn’t accept any bullshit excuses.  She applied the
toe of her running shoe to the crack of my ass and bullied me into losing the
cigarettes.  Smartest thing I ever did.”

They went out together into a
glorious summer morning, pale pink tinting the eastern sky as the birds awoke
for the day and began their good-morning songs.  “You need to stretch first,”
he said.  “Like this.”  They did a few stretching exercises together, until he
decided they were both sufficiently limber.  Then they started down the road, Paige
deliberately positioned on the shoulder, away from traffic.  He slowed his pace
considerably to accommodate her.  “You want to run facing traffic,” he said,
“so you can always see what’s coming.  Especially here in the sticks, where
there aren’t any sidewalks.”

For a time, they ran together in
silence.  She moved with a lengthy stride, strong and even, in spite of her lack
of experience. 
Youth
, he thought.  It made all the difference.  He
studied her from the corner of his eye, marveling at her lean strength, blown
away by the fact that he’d fathered this amazing creature.