The Right Kind of Wrong (10 page)

"What was that for?" Vince looks concerned.

I don't look at him and return to wiping off the tombstone.

"Dead flowers by a grave. It's morbid. And wrong."

"Okaaaay."
 

He plops down on the blanket. "My father planted them. I didn't think they belonged here. That's all."

"I'm getting the sense you hate your dad."

I laugh. "You sure are Captain Obvious, aren't you?"

He doesn't laugh with me. "Why?"

"Why what?"

He gives me a "I-call-bullshit" look. "Why do you hate your dad?"

The tombstone is now spotless, so I fall into place beside Vince and start plucking strands of yellowed grass beside me. "It's a long story. And I don't hate him."

Vince shrugs. "I think we have time."

What’s the best way to sum up the relationship I have with my father? "Basically, he's a workaholic who didn't want a kid. My mom raised me until she died and Dad sort went crazy. He'd leave for weeks at a time, forgetting to tell anyone he was leaving—including me. One day I got off the school bus and waited for Dad to get home, but he never did. We didn't have food in the house and I didn't know what to do, so I walked all the way to my grandparents' house."
 

"What did they do?"

I remember the yelling and the phone calls. I prayed my father would fight for me. Apologize. Do anything to keep me with him. But he didn't. "They decided it was time for me to move in with them. So I did. I never got an apology, he never tried to persuade me to come home. That was what he wanted. To get rid of me. And he got what he wanted. I'm not sure we've spoken more than five or ten minutes at a time since then."

Vince probably thinks I'm callous for not crying. Most people would cry. Isn't it normal to cry when talking about the man who abandoned you? "My grandfather totally made up for my dad not being there. Seriously. Everything that my dad could have done, my grandfather did for me. And probably ten times better than Dad ever could."

Vince pushes a button on his camera and points it at me. "What was your grandfather like?"
 

 
I laugh. "That's a complicated question."

"Give me a few basics. Before we get into the nitty-gritty details, it will be helpful for the project if we get an idea of the man he was."

I pluck more grass and try to tie a knot. "My grandfather was a lot of things. He was the kind of man who would drop whatever he was doing to help someone if they needed it. He loaned just about everything out. His car, the tractor, money. There wasn't anything he wouldn't give if someone else needed it."

 
I smile thinking about the way people talked about him. They instantly softened when he was the subject of the conversation. "He was very kind, but he was also stern and stubborn. He knew how to argue, too. When Wesley Pierce said something, people listened. Actually, they didn't just listen, they believed his every word. He had a way with words and the truth. I don't know, maybe that's why I believe I can use words to chase down the truth."
 

All I see when I look at Vince is a camera lens. I smile and drop my eyes to the patch of grass at my side. My eyes get hazy, from wanting to cry but holding back, "He was a good man with a big heart. He was everything I'm not and everything I want to be. And I—" I have to stop because now the tears are dangerously close. I'm a mixed bag of emotions. I want to cry but I'm not ready to share that part of me with Vince.
 

Vince puts his camera down and scoots close. He smells like sandalwood and lemon grass. Who smells that good? His arm snakes around my shoulder and he leans down.
 

"I think you're more like your grandfather than you realize," he says.

I don't push away. Instead, I close my eyes and imagine what my grandfather would do in this moment. And it hits me. He wouldn't do anything but savor it for what it's worth. I sit, curled into Vince, silent. We stay like that for what seems like an hour, reading each other's silence.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

We drive through the old part of Everson, rows and rows of massive Victorian houses that have spots on the Historical Homes website. "What was it like?" Vince asks.
 

"Huh?"

"Growing up in a small town like this?"
 

Boring. Oppressive. Smothering.

I shrug. "I don't know. Different than California. Everson is probably where all those clichés about small towns were born?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Here? No one locks their doors. Everyone knows everyone's business, and the same people who say they can't wait to get the hell out of here end up married and knocked up."

"So you're saying it's an idyllic little town."
 

I laugh. "Yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying." Looking at Everson now, I see the appeal. It's so much quieter then California. A pang of nostalgia hits me and for a minute, it feels as if this is exactly where I belong. I pull up to the curb of a house with light blue siding and stark white windows. The grass is a well-manicured, vibrant green. I point at the house. "That's where my father lives. Hasn't changed much since I moved."

Vince stares at the house for a few minutes and then turns to me. "Looks nice."

"I guess so."

Vince doesn't say anything after that. I guess it is kind of awkward for me to talk about my issues with my father and then sit parked outside his house. But, I do have a reason for being here. A particular picture of my mom and me flashes to mind. I'd meant to go back and get it all those years ago and never did.

"There's something I left here a long time ago. I think it's time to get it back. Do you want to come in?"

"What if your dad is there?"

"He won't be. He travels for work. He's only home, like, one week out of the year."

"What does he do again?"

A job so important he gave up his daughter for it. "Foreign and domestic sales for John Deere."
 

"Hmm."

Vince follows me to the front porch and I reach under the rug. The rusty key is in the same position I left it.
 

I unlock the door and let myself in.

 
The entryway looks exactly the same as it did when I lived here. Funny, because when I close my eyes, I can picture the day I came through this door the very last time. The entry leads to a formal dining room and the kitchen.
 

"That's a cool picture." Vince stop and points to a painting of a child with windswept hair. She's building what's left of a half-washed-away sand castle. The sky—a color I imagine my mother mixing gobs of blue shades together to find the right one—melts into the sea-green waves in the distance. I'd thought it was 'pretty' when I was a little girl, but as I study it now, there's a bittersweet depth to the child reconstructing what's been broken.

"My mom painted that." It was the last picture she painted before she died.

"She was good."

I walk over and the speckled bits of paint prickle against my fingertips. "Yeah, she was."

 
I take Vince through the kitchen, which is as clean and immaculate as one would expect from someone who's never home. We move through the living room and the office until we get to the hallway that leads to my father's room and my old room.
 

I expect a clean, upgrade bedroom turned office or workout room, but when I bring Vince into my room, I'm transported back in time. My lavender and yellow paisley bedspread covers a twin-sized bed and though there are layers of dust covering the dresser, nothing has changed. Nothing has moved. It's exactly the same as I left it. I'm not sure whether I'm creeped out or touched.
 

Vince taps me on the shoulder. "Is this your mom?" He holds a framed picture of my five-year-old-self wrapped in my mother's arms with my father laughing in the background. He found it. I knew it was in here somewhere.

My mother’s been gone so long, sometimes I forget about the ache in my chest when I think about her. But right now, it's hard to breathe.
 

"That's her." I take the picture from him.

"She was pretty. You look like her, you know."

I snap my head up to look at him but he's looking around the rest of the room.
 

I've always wanted to look like my mother. His words hit me in a place in my heart that I don't share with anyone. The place where I hold my emotions hostage.
 

 
I clutch the picture to my chest and check the closet, shaking my head when I see pastel colored tights and other child-sized outfits. Why did he keep everything? Too lazy to clean? Or did he think he could preserve what we had once so long ago?

I hear a clinking noise. Vince is fingering a set a medals hanging off a shelf. He holds one up. "Someone was good at soccer, huh?"

I half-smile. "Yeah, I was pretty good."

"Did you stop playing once you got to college?"

"No. I quit the team once I moved in with my grandparents. They couldn't really get me to the practices and I really didn't like it all that much anyway."
 

I'm maxed out on my emotions when I walk toward the door.
 

"I think we've seen everything here. I'm starving. Want to grab something to eat?"

Vince sets the medals on the shelf. "Sure."

Once we're in the car, Vince clears his throat. "You okay after that?"

"Oh yeah. I'm good." I wish I'd never stepped in the front door.
 

It's only a three-minute drive to Cooper's Diner. I pull myself together and smile big. "Ready to have the best burgers in the Midwest?"
 

"That's a pretty big claim. I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm an expert on burgers. You’d better be able to back up your assertions."

"Just wait and see."
 

We sit in a booth near the back and a young girl saunters over to take our order.
 

"I think we're going to have two Cooper Specials," I say handing her our menus.

A short set of beeps emit from my purse and I check my phone. I've missed a call and a new message flashes across the screen. It's from Kyle.

I'm sorry. I miss you. I want to see you.

I'm proud that I haven't thought about Kyle much since we left California. Vince
has
kept me pretty busy. I take this as a sign that my heart isn't too broken up about our failed... whatever it was.

"Let me guess. It's Kyle?"

I meet his eyes. "How'd you know that?"

He rolls his eyes. "I'm a guy, remember? I know how the apology booty call works."

I raise my eyebrows. "How often do you use this apology booty call?"

The lines around his eyes crinkle as he laughs. "I don't have to use it. I just know how it works."

"Uh huh."

"So, what's next for this project?"

"The library is on the way home, so we'll stop there first."
 

"What are we looking for at the library?"

"There's gotta be some articles on my grandfather, right? Shouldn't we start there?"

Vince considers this. "I guess."

"That doesn't sound very enthusiastic," I say as the waitress brings us our food. Thick, succulent beef, stacked with cheddar, swiss and provolone cheese sits between a grilled bun. I bring it to my mouth when my name is called.

I turn and see the last person I expected to run into while I was here. I'm suddenly very aware of my plain boyfriend t-shirt and boring cowboy boots. It's exactly how I looked the last time I was in town.

"I thought that was you. How are you?"
 

I stare at my very tall, blonde haired ex-boyfriend, Sean. A lanky, redhead hangs on his arm.
 

"Sean! It's such a surprise to see you here."

He nods. "I'm in between classes at Drake right now. Thought I'd better come home to see the parents."

The girl on his arm is clearly uncomfortable. She covers it with a fake smile and an extended hand. "I'm Hannah, Sean's girlfriend. It's meet-the-family weekend for us."
 

Sean notices Vince, whose face now wears the smuggest smirk I’ve ever seen. "How are things with you? You're still in school in California, aren't you?"

He's pretends not to know the answer, even though it was the entire reason we broke up.
 

"Yeah, Sacramento State."

"So this must be a meet-the-family weekend for you, too?"

Vince answers for me. "Yeah, exactly. Elaine is such a peach. Had to see her before our documentary debuts at the Cannes Film Festival."

That earns him an evil look from Sean's girl. Sean laughs nervously. "Really? Well, that's fantastic. We always knew you'd make it big."

I plaster on a smile. No you didn't. You told me I was chasing after a pipe dream. "Thanks. Nice to see you again."

He glances at Vince and then back to me. Something in his eyes makes my insides churn. Sadness? Pity? Admiration? Whatever it is, it's gone as quickly as it came and Hannah pulls him away from our table.
 

Vince’s crooked smile is adorable.
 

"Why do you look so smug?"

"He totally wants you."

"Are you kidding me? Did you see that thing on his arm?"

Vince laughs. "That thing on his arm isn't going to be famous or win awards for investigative journalism. She also doesn't have me."

"What does having you have to do with anything?"

He winks and takes a bite of his burger. "Everything. By the way, you're right. These burgers are fucking delicious."

I grin. "Told you."

The Everson Library reminds me just how small this town is. The ramshackle building, with its discolored ruddy bricks is about the size of the Archives room at
The Bee
. It looks miniscule, despite the exaggerated comparison.
 

"This is the library?" Vince brings his camera to his face.

"Yup."