Emily Franklin - Principles Of Love 06 - Labor Of Love (7 page)

"Hello?" My voice comes out of my body in a way that makes me feel like an actor reading rehearsed lines. Nerves. Crazy whirlwind of feelings. I try again. "Hi! Um, I'm here--hello?"

I don't know quite what I expect, but silence isn't it. It's like those moments in a movie where you're waiting for something to jump out of the closet--each second clicking past increases my pulse. In the kitchen, the dishes are on the

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drying rack--a single cereal bowl and coffee mug. I take this in as evidence. She's here alone.

"Gala?"

I can't shout Mom to her--that would be just plain odd--it's not a word I've uttered much and I'm not starting upon first meeting.

"Love."

Prickles of surprise ripple from my neck down my arms. I turn around."Dad?"

"Hi, sweetheart." He looks at me with the same gaze he had when our dog got put to sleep. I was in third grade then and came home from school to find the dog bed empty, Chocolate's bowl of food untouched. He'd been hit by a car and was in so much pain, Dad had him put to sleep. I never even got a chance to say good-bye.

"What happened?" I rest my palms on the counter.The surface is old, chopping-block wood you have to oil so it doesn't crack. Mable taught me that. She also taught me where the rags and cleaning products are--in a small other wise fairly useless space to the left of the fridge. I go there now, claim a clean cloth, and bring it over with the bottle of oil, to the counter.

"She's not here. Love?"

"Uh-huh." I sponge clean the counter, dry it, then set to work. First you douse the top with oil--not so much that it

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puddles, just enough to spread a sheen over the entire thing, including the sides. I rub hard, putting my shoulders into it.

"She's not here."

"Yeah," I say, nodding as the wood drinks in the mois ture."I'm getting that feeling."

"So I came. . . ."

I stop and look up. "You came to rescue me. Again." I swipe at the counter, checking in the light to see if I've missed any spots."You can't keep it up, Dad."

"What do you mean?" He rakes his hands through his thinning hair. Louisa has encouraged him to keep the top a little longer, which suits him. Now he looks like all the other boys on campus, only the sides of his hair are flecked with silvery gray. Gala's never seen him with anything other than deep brown hair. I wonder what it would be like to see someone after so long.To see me as anything other than an infant.

"Did you send her pictures?" I look at him. "Of me, I mean?"

Dad shakes his head while he answers."No. I think I told you I have no contact with her. Zero." He pauses, pressing a fingertip into the counter and feeling the slick of oil.

"It's not supposed to be so slippery," I say and wipe at it again."I put too much on."

"It's not supposed to be like this at all," Dad says. He

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looks at the counter and then at me. "I didn't come to save you. I came to tell you. . . . Okay, maybe I did want to save you. But not from her. I can't do that. One person can't con trol another person's actions."

"You're doing it," I say and he knows just what I mean. I loathe when he brings his job home--when he uses head master speak to talk normally with me.

"Sorry. But you know what? Being a headmaster is part of me. It's part of my identity. You'll learn that what you do--your job or career or occupation, whatever you call it, leaks in. Or maybe who you are leaks over to the job side."

"You're losing me here, Dad." I hold the rag in my hands, surveying the kitchen and the living room for signs of life. The shades are drawn.

"She left." Dad's voice is big, almost like the stage voice I used when I first shouted hello.

"Left the cottage or left--" I catch Dad's glance. "Oh. She's gone, you mean."

"Left. Gone.What's the difference?" His shoulders slump. "She's a producer--that's what she does. She finds talent, slicks it onto a record. . . . Maybe that's making light of her job. She's good at it, I know. Successful. I guess what I'm getting at is that once a record is complete, it's over. At least her part of it. She doesn't tour, she doesn't travel with the band selling T-shirts."

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"So you're saying her job is segmented."

"Yes. I've thought a lot about her--Gala." He says her name and I can tell from his tone how long it's taken the ocean of sadness he had surrounding his breakup with her-- or his desertion--to recede."She's a leaver."

"It seems like she stuck it out in LA," I say."I'm not try ing to defend her, but I'm just saying. She clearly jumped ship with us, but it's not like she changed jobs every two seconds or lived in a motor home."

Dad rubs his eye and yawns.This is probably more taxing on him than I can imagine--his own past whipping him in the face, plus his daughter's heart on the line.

"I can't judge her life now.You're right. My mistake. All I can tell you is that it's my belief that once someone proves to you that they can--and will--leave you, they will do it again."

Suddenly I get it. Possibility springs up."Wait a minute." I watch his face for signs he knows I'm onto him."You saw her again, didn't you?" Dad puts his lips together like he's going to whistle, but no sound comes out.

"What do you mean?"

"After. After she left that first time." I step forward to ward him."She came back?"

Dad clears his throat as though that will distract me from uncovering the unsaid part of the past."It's complicated."

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"Well," I say matter-of-factly, "my shift's over, I've had lunch, and apparently I have nothing on my social calendar, so I'm all ears."

Dad sits down next to me so we're side-by-side at the counter on stools that belong in a diner circa Grease. We don't look at one another; we just rest our elbows on the wood and stare at the sink, the drying rack, the fruit bowl filled with peaches, plums, and mottled nectarines. "You were tiny, when she took off.You know that, I think." He sighs."I spent a few months wallowing until all of a sudden I imagined her plotting. That's the difference between life in prison and a long sentence, right? Intent? I realized she had the intent to leave. She didn't lie there in our bed, with you in the bassinet in the other room, and spontaneously decide--oh, hey, I think I'll take off in the middle of the night."

It's weird to hear all this. Like that film, Rashomon, which I saw for my film elective at Hadley. I've been told the details of that night from another source. From Mable. All narratives are like that, I guess--different viewpoints depending on your context in the story. It's easy to forget I wasn't the only one left. Sometimes I think about my dad and how his heart was shattered into a billion fragments, or how Mable lost her best friend. But right now, I think of her. Of Gala, lying in her nightgown or T-shirt or pajamas,

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whatever she wore, tired, and I finally see her as miserable. Trapped.

"She must have really needed to go."

"That's part of what I'm getting at. I don't think she took leaving lightly. I believe--and maybe it's partially my mind's way of rationalizing the event--that she thought it over for a long time. Looking back over the weeks and months before, she distanced herself from me, from Mable." Dad keeps his upper body straight but turns his head and via peripheral vision I can see him looking at me. "I used to think that premeditation made it worse. Only now I think . . ."

"That she must have weighed in on the damage she'd do?"

Dad agrees, nodding."Exactly." He puts his hands on the stool and turns it so I'm now facing him, interview style. "She's not a bad person.This whole thing would be easier in some ways if she were--"

"Less complicated.Then we could just sit around bitch ing about her."

Dad studies me, thinking."You're pretty wise, you know that?"

A smirk is my only reply. I take his hand and play with the loose skin around his knuckles the way I did as a kid. Back then, his hands seemed so large and strong I figured they could protect me from everything that might try to

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harm or hurt me. "You're a good dad. A lot of people can't say that about their fathers. I'm glad I can."

I leave the kitchen and wander around the small living room, wondering about Gala, about this place, about Sadie. "Dad?"

He talks from his stool."Yup."

"Work with me for a second--where'd she go? Seriously."

"Back to Los Angeles."

Familiar sinking feelings tug at my arms. Did she pre judge me like those college essays? "Wasn't my allure strong enough?" I make a joke out of it, doing a grandiose model ing pose as though Gala might choose to cast me in some thing. Oh, yeah, her life.

Dad stands up and takes a set of keys from his pocket. "Here."

"What's this?" I reach for the keys and hold them, won dering if they'll unlock some treasure chest or if Dad's chang ing the locks on our house at Hadley for some reason.

"Gala is selling her house."

"I know. I was there, remember?" I flash to that monstros ity of a mansion, my brief stay, how empty the house was, how devoid of personality. The opposite of Mable's apart ment. Not that I should keep comparing Gala to Mable, but it's built into me."And Arabella's still there.With . . ."

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"Love.A couple of things before we talk the sun down."

"Okay." Outside, the afternoon light ripples over the buildings and sidewalks, into the front windows of the cot tage, casting long shadows from the cabinet that holds the mail, where once I'd found the deed to this place.

"First: Gala phoned me on her way to Logan. Her rea sons were valid--she had an offer on the house and as you may or may not be aware, real estate is going through a tough time right now.The bubble burst and she needed to close as soon as possible."

"I don't actually know what closing is, but I get the gist. Second?"

"She's coming back."

My mouth is caught between smile and wanting to be not at all affected by this."When?"

"Labor Day weekend.With Sadie."

"Which I was going to ask you about . . ."

"Wait. Let me finish." Dad's eyebrows are so clenched he looks pruny. He must be on the verge of announcing something big.

"You're getting married.To Louisa. I knew it.When?" I cross my arms over my chest, feeling for some reason proud of beating him to the punch and then guilty for stealing his announcement thunder.

"No . . ." Dad raises his eyebrows. "No wonder all your

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class comments say you're able to dispute a point before there's been one set." I shrug. "There's something else. . . ." We face off like we're going to rumble in a comedic way.

"Dad--the day's only so long. . . ." I don't want to hurry through this but I factored on spending lots of time with Gala. So now that she's not here, I want to get a move on filling up my night. With Charlie working so much on his academic aims, I've been taking long walks on the beach, the clich�d romantic ideal, but with Chris who decided to hang out here for the remaining weeks of summer. He's set up the Gay-Straight Alliance at school and looked at a few colleges, but basically I think between now and when that first chapel bell chimes for senior year his goal is to be so friendly, so funny, so okay with the fact that Haverford is see ing someone else, that Haverford grows attached to Chris's nonchalance and falls for him.We'll see. Maybe tonight I can convince Chris to spy on Jacob with me. I haven't seen him yet, despite milling around various venues where I'd expect to accidentally-on-purpose bump into him.

"Love?"

"Dad."

"These"--he points to the keys--"are for here. She left you this." He hands me a sealed envelope.

"I thought you said you didn't see her."

"I didn't. She dropped it by the caf�."

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My mouth hangs open."She was there? Where was I?"

Dad flings up his hands. "I don't know. You'd think in this vast world of communication possibilities, you two would think to use a phone. Or email."

"The only email I have is when I haul my butt to the library."

"Oh, right. My point is that perhaps both of you are avoiding talking."

"I am. You're right. I don't want to have a phone call with her. How much more awkward could that be? Um, hi, I'm your . . ."

"Okay, okay." Dad holds a hand in the stop position."So you have the keys.You have her letter or note." He glances at the envelope.

"Oh.You want me to open it? Now?"

"You could. Or, no, that's not my place. Ignore that." He sighs. "I came here because Gala called. And I knew you'd wind up looking for her. I came here to give you the keys and the letter. . . . Doug had stored them behind the counter."

How incredible, I think. All the while I was serving smoothies and pouring coffee, adding cream with that or making coffees dark and sweet, my actual mother's hand writing and feelings, or whatever's in the note, were waiting for me."Doug's a space cadet."

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"He's just swamped with the renaming. But yes, it was a bit of an oversight not to give you this as soon as she asked him to."

"Maybe it doesn't seem as pressing to anyone else. I mean, it's not as though she walked in, announced I was her long- lost--or long-left--daughter." Dad wipes his hand down his face the way he does after a grueling squash game. "Are you sweating?" Maybe he is going to tell me he's proposed to Louisa. "Dad, whatever you need to tell me, it's okay. I can handle it." I sort of assumed he'd be committed to her now--either by asking her to move in when I started board ing (cue inner groan) or by an engagement ring.

"Sadie isn't your half sister."

This makes me really sad. Sadder than it should, see ing as I've had a half sister for only a few weeks. And I've spent a grand total of maybe twenty hours with her. But it's something, having that genetic connection. Or not even the genes, just knowing she and I would be connected forever. "Oh."The word and my mouth are very small, closed over the sudden vanishing of a sibling I never even thought to long for.