With the Father (18 page)

She pulled the towel off her head and began patting
her hair dry.
Her expression was hidden by a mound of dark
curls
, but her usually straight shoulders sagged. Remorse didn’t look
good on Kate, and it was something I’d seen only a handful of times. She acted
without apology, and regret was not a word in her vocabulary. “And I want him
for you.
You
deserve to be happy. Not just content, but truly happy.”

I wanted that, too. There had to be a reason that I’d
been left behind, and it couldn’t possibly be to be miserable for the rest of
my life. “So I should go for it?”

“You should go for it.”

“I think Maddox is good for you,” I said, hoping it
sounded encouraging rather than like I was offering a consolation prize.

“Whatever. I don’t
want to talk about Maddox right now.” She returned to the bed dressed now. “I
want to hear more about your trip.”

Our conversation
had stripped away some of my excitement, but I still needed to talk to someone.
However, Kate no longer felt like the right person. “We just went to dinner on
the river. It was no big deal.”

“With Father
Russell?”

“No, he had to take
an early flight. It was just the two of us.”

“And?”

“It was nice,” I
vaguely conceded.

With a furrowed
brow and narrowed eyes, she said, “Don’t be like that Grace. I want to hear
about it. I’m excited for you
.
Did you kiss him again?”

“Yeah, a few
times.” I was being cryptic, but I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t really
believe that my sister would do anything to hurt me, but her feelings for Paul
were still too fresh in mind. There were too many live wires
laying
between us. If I said too much, one of us was going to trip over one and get
burned. “Speaking of kissing,” I said, changing the subject away from either of
us. “Who is Dad kissing these days?”

“Frankie
Gatz
.”

“
Nooooo
,” I said on a
groan. “No, no, no.”

A playful smirk tugged at the corner of Kate’s
mouth. “See. He was right not to tell you about it.”

“It’s not that. It’s just … well …Frank and
Frankie … It’s too awful for words.” Once again, laughter filled the room.

“So you don’t hate her, and you don’t hate love.
You just hate their names together.”

“You have to admit that it’s pretty terrible.”

Shaking her head but with a huge grin on her face,
Kate turned back to her closet. “It really is.”

_________________________

“Dad?” I stepped off of
the back porch with Aurora on my heels.

She was always on my
heels. If I was home, she was right there alongside me. It was as if she
mistakenly thought that I’d saved her life after her episode last week on our
walk. She had no idea that she would never have come that close to dying if I
hadn’t dragged her all over town when it was almost a hundred degrees outside.

My dad set his glass of water down on the iron
patio table. “Hey, Graceful. Have a seat.” He leaned down and coaxed Aurora
over with the wave of his hand. She momentarily abandoned me to sit at his
feet, putting one paw up on his leg to beg for attention.

We sat in silence for several minutes with Aurora
belly-side up, my dad happy to appease her, and me content to gaze at the still
surface of the pool. A perfectly pink sun lowered on the horizon, casting a
hypnotizing glow upon the water.

“Why do you call me that?” I finally asked, though
it wasn’t one of the questions currently weighing on me.

“Graceful?” he asked, looking up from the
belly-scratching
he was giving.

“Yeah. Did I fall down a lot as a kid?”

“You did. Remember when your mom put you in dance?
You were a terrible ballerina.” His smile caused his eyes to twinkle and the
corners to crease. My dad was showing his age.

“Dad! I wasn’t
that
bad.”

“You really were. But your mom … she loved to
watch you up there on that stage. Such a tiny little disaster in your leotard
and tutu.” He shook his head. “She couldn’t have been more proud. What a woman
she was.” The dreamy smile on his face made me happy.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” I
said, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. I rubbed my hands together
before weaving my fingers together. The act reminded me of Paul and the way
he’d had refused to let go of my hand last night. “How did you know it was okay
to move on?”

He leaned back in his chair, abandoning Aurora,
and gave me a knowing smile. “You’ve been talking to Kate.”

“Well, yeah. But it’s pretty obvious that
something’s up with you. I may not be very graceful but you’re not very
sneaky.”

“Do you need me to be around more?” Concern was
etched across his face. As if he could ever be anything less than what I
needed.

“No, Dad. I’m fine.” He sighed in relief and
reached for his glass again. He drummed his fingers on his glass to an
imaginary beat that I wished I could hear. “I’m actually worried that I’m too
fine.”

“Not possible.”

“I’m serious. Can I be frank?”

“No, that’s me,” he said grinning.

“Seriously, Dad.”

“Sorry. Yes, let’s be serious.”

“Okay,” I paused to get my bearings and to find my
courage. “I know it’s really soon, but I’m sort of interested in somebody.”

He raised an eyebrow at me but didn’t say anything.

“Let’s put aside the fact that it’s completely
inappropriate for me to be interested in anyone right now, because it’s who it
is that is the biggest shocker.”
 

“First, who’s to say it’s inappropriate?”

“Come on, Dad. Jonathan’s only been gone five months.”

“Grace.” His chin lowered, and he looked at me over
the top of his glasses.

“What?” I said, waving the dog over to my side. I
needed something to do with my nervous energy. I scratched her head while I
waited for him to answer.

“There’s no prescription for grief. Just like no one
can tell you that you’ve grieved too long, no one can tell you that you haven’t
grieved long enough. You have to go at your own speed and to hell with everyone
else. You’ll know when you’re ready to move on.”

“How did you know?”

“Well, men are different. After being married and
knowing what it’s like to have a woman take care of us, we’re terrible at being
alone. So just when I thought I couldn’t take the quiet any more, Frankie
approached me at church. She asked me if I could help her with her gutters.”

“Ms. Frankie and those gutters,” I said in disbelief.

“I think it’s her standard pick-up line now.”

Ms. Frankie had become a widow more than ten years
prior when her very prominent, older husband had collapsed during a game of
racquetball. She’d still been young at the time. Though no one knew her true
age, rumor put her around forty when he’d died at the age of seventy-six. It
wasn’t their age difference or the fact that she’d inherited Main Street bank
that had made her a legend.
 

She was most famous for calling 911 several years
after his death to put in a request for gutter cleaning service from the
Merriville
fire department. When the dispatcher had refused
to forward her call, she had hung up and called the fire chief directly.
Because it had been a slow week, he responded by sending half the crew to work
at her house. A few weeks later, her gutters were clean, there was a fresh coat
of paint on her garage, and her flowerbeds had never looked better. When word
got out that Frankie
Gatz
had the fire department
working at her house for free, there’d been
an uproar
in town. The woman could have bought the fire department if she’d wanted to,
but she refused to hire a maintenance man.

“You fell for the gutter rouse?”

“Nah, I knew she was just trying to sink her teeth
into me. I’m getting older, after all. But I didn’t really have anything else
to do so I went over to check them out for her. Turns out, it wasn’t me that
was doing the checking out though.” He winked at me, and laughter erupted from
his chest.

“
Ewwww
, Dad.” I shuddered. “This conversation is not going the
way I expected.”

“Exactly my point, Grace. Things rarely go the
way
 
we
expect.
But that’s what makes life interesting. I loved your mother. I’ll never love
anyone the way I loved her, but Frankie doesn’t expect me to. Neither one of us
are looking to replace your mother. But I can’t just sit around this house and
wait to die either. Living is a gift, and I owe it to Karen to live for the
both of us. Besides, she wouldn’t want me sitting around here, pining for her.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Well, okay, she might want me to pine a little, but I
promise that I’m thinking about her more than I’m not.” He was quiet for a few
long seconds before asking the question I was dreading most, “So who’s the
lucky guy?”

 
“I’m not
sure he’s all that lucky. I’m mean, I’m sort of a mess, and
he
definitely should not be getting involved with me.”

“I’ve seen a change in you the past few weeks, Grace.
I chalked it up to all the garbage that Jonathan left behind for you to dig
through, but maybe the change isn’t because of Jonathan. Maybe it’s because of
this new person in your life. I don’t know who he is, but I’d say he’s pretty
damn lucky to have you.”

I steeled my spine and braced myself for the pending
fallout. “It’s Paul.”

“Who?” my dad asked, scratching the
white scruff on his chin in obvious confusion.

“Paul.”

“The guy at the bank? He doesn’t really seem like your
type.” Paul at the bank had a collection of Star Wars
bobbleheads
on his desk and still wore Birkenstocks.

“No. Paul Sullivan.” I winced as I said it and reached
down to scratch Aurora again, hoping to keep her exactly where she was –
a buffer between my dad and me.

“As in, Father Sullivan?”

“The one and only.”

He chuckled quietly. Not the reaction I was expecting.
“Well, he is a good looking fella. I don’t think you’re alone, Grace. I’ve
never seen so many women at church as I have since Father Paul came to town.
But do you think maybe you’re interested in him because he’s unattainable?”

“What if he’s not?”

“He likes you, too?”

“I think so. We’ve been feeling things out a little
bit, trying to figure out what’s going on without really trying to define it.”

“If you had to define it, how would you?”

“I’m not sure. I like him. A lot. He makes me
smile.
 
And laugh. And forget the
weight on my chest.”

“Well, I certainly like to hear that. And how would he
define it?”

“I don’t’ know, but Kate thinks he’s in love with me
and has been since before …
 
you
know … the fire.” I wondered when I’d be able to talk about it without stumbling
over the words.
 
Surely, someone who
couldn’t even talk about what had happened, wasn’t ready to move on from it.

My dad was silent for a long time.
 
He picked up his cocktail and resumed
his observation of the pool. After a few long sips, he finally spoke. “You
know, Kate is a really good judge of character. She’s always had a second sense
about people. If she thinks he’s in love with you, he probably is. But Lord
Almighty does that man have a rough road ahead of him.” He closed his eyes and
shook his head. “You want my advice?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Figure out as best you can how you’d define it,
before you ask him to. I know it’s hard. You’ve been through so much, but you
need to figure out how you feel before he does something he can’t take back.”

I hung my head. Up to this point, my main concern had
been with my own wounded heart and what everyone would think if they found out
that it wasn’t as wounded as they thought it should be. However, Paul was the
one risking everything.
 

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, standing up.
 
“Are you cleaning gutters this evening?”

His deep baritone
laugh traveled through the yard and startled Aurora who jumped to all fours
faster than I thought possible.
 
“Yep. Are you going out?”

“Undetermined,” I
said, heading up the porch steps.

I was almost to the
door when his voice caused me to turn back. He was staring at the water again
and spoke as if he was in a daze. “Do you remember cleaning those filters as a
kid? Every morning and evening you came out here to rescue whatever critter was
trapped in them. Frogs. Turtles.
Even one extremely lucky
mouse that you managed to catch in time.
We didn’t call you graceful
because you lacked grace. We called you graceful because you were full of it. I
certainly can’t fault Paul for seeing that too.”

I watched my dad
for a few seconds before opening the back door and practically skipping my way
through the kitchen. I grabbed my phone from the counter and typed in a text to
Paul, who asked earlier if I had plans.
Movie night? Everyone’s going out.