“She seems fantastic. Liam is not easily impressed when it comes to music.”
“She and I butt heads a lot. Teenage girls. They need… stuff that dads just aren’t good at.”
“I feel that deficiency with Liam too, just on the flip side.”
“He looks like he’s doing fine.”
“Maybe in spite of me.”
“So you’re divorced now?”
“Long time. Right after Liam was born. My ex moved to Seattle and has nothing to do with him. I just have to put it down to my poor choice in men.”
“How’d you manage college and law school with a kid?”
“My parents were a huge help. But sometimes I’d take Liam to class with me. You do what you have to do.”
Jack stopped, picked up a pebble off the beach, and threw it into the oncoming breakers. “Yeah, you do.”
Jenna sipped her coffee and watched him. “So are y’all just down here for the summer?”
“That’s the plan. Look, I’ll write up that estimate and get it to you tomorrow.”
“I tell you what. Why don’t I just give you a check tonight to help cover the materials and you can get started.”
“You don’t want an estimate?” he said in surprise.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I trust you.”
“But you don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
“Okay, thanks for the coffee.” He smiled. “And the trust.”
“Stop by the Little Bit again. Have to try the killer onion rings.”
As they walked back, she said, “I really am sorry about your wife.”
“Me too.” Jack glanced back at the old couple still walking slowly hand in hand. “Me too.”
28
Mikki awoke the next morning in her attic bedroom. She stretched, yawned, and sat back, bunching her pillows around her. Then she rose, picked up her guitar, and started playing a new song she’d been working on, using the new technique Liam had taught her. The long fingers of her left hand worked the neck of the instrument, while her right hand did the strumming. She put down the guitar, went to her desk, picked up some blank music sheets, and started making notations and jotting down some lyrics. Then she started singing while she played the guitar.
A minute later, someone knocked on her door.
Startled, she stopped singing and said, “Yeah?”
“Are you decent?” Jack called through the door.
“Yes.”
He opened the door and came in. He had a breakfast tray in hand. Bacon, eggs, an English muffin smeared with Nutella, and a glass of milk. He set it down in front of her. Mikki put the guitar aside.
“How’d you know I like Nutella?”
“Did some good old-fashioned reconnaissance.” He pulled a rickety ladder-back chair up next to the bed.
“What?”
“Okay, I looked in your room back in Cleveland. Dig in before it gets cold.”
Mikki began to eat. “Where’s everybody else?” she asked.
“Still sleeping. It’s early yet. Did you have fun last night with Liam?”
Mikki swallowed a piece of bacon and exclaimed, “Omigod, Dad, he is, like, so awesome. That thing he showed me with the fingers, the pressure points? It works. We played some sets together, and he likes the bands I like, and he’s funny, and—”
“So is that a yes?”
“What?”
“You did have a good time last night?”
She grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I did. How did things go with Jenna?”
“I agreed to do the job. She gave me a check to start. Sammy and I will get the materials and go from there.”
“She seems really cool. Don’t you think?”
“She’s very nice.” Jack slipped something from his pocket and handed it to her. “I found this in a box in the lighthouse this morning.”
“The lighthouse? Pretty early to have already been out there.”
“Look at the picture.”
Mikki held it tightly by the edges, her brow furrowing. “Is this Mom?”
“Yep. There’s a date on back. Your mom was right about your age in that photo. It was taken down here at the beach. It must’ve been the summer before she moved to Cleveland. The lighthouse is in the background.” He paused. “You see, don’t you?”
“See what?”
“That you look just like her.”
Mikki squinted at the image of her mom. “I do?”
“Absolutely you do. Well, except for the weird hair color and goth clothes. Your mom was more into ponytails and pastels.”
“Ha-ha, real funny. And my clothes are not goth, which is, like, so last century anyway.”
“Sorry. Why don’t you finish your breakfast and we can go for a walk on the beach before things get going.”
“Is this part of you being a dad thing?” she asked bluntly.
“Partly, yeah.”
“And the other part?”
“I had a long time to be alone after you guys left, and I hated it. I never want to be alone again.”
As they hit the sand, the sun was slowly coming up and the sky was a sheet of pink and rose with the darkened mass of the ocean just below it. There was a wind that had dispelled most of the night’s heat. Gulls swooped and soared over the water before diving, hitting the surface and sometimes coming away with breakfast in the form of a wriggling fish.
“It’s really different down here,” said Mikki, finally breaking the silence.
“Ocean, sand, hotter.”
“Not just that.”
“I guess no matter where we’d be right now, it would be different,” he replied.
“I wake up sometimes and think she’s still here.”
Jack stopped walking and looked out to the ocean. “I wake up every morning expecting to see her. It’s only when she’s not there that I realize…” He started to walk again. “But down here, it’s different. I feel… I feel closer to her somehow.”
Mikki gazed worriedly at her dad but said nothing.
They threw pebbles into the water and let the fingers of the tides chase them up and down the sand. Mikki found a shell that she pocketed to later show her brothers.
“You’ve got a great voice,” he said. “I was listening outside the door this morning.”
“It’s okay,” she said modestly, although it was clear his praise had pleased her.
“Do you want to study music in college?”
“I’m not sure I want to go to college. You didn’t.”
“That’s true.”
“I’m not sure the sort of stuff I want to play would be popular in college curriculums or in the mainstream music industry.”
“What kind is it?”
“Are you asking just to be polite, or do you really want to know?”
“Look, do you have to make everything so complicated? I just want to know.”
“Okay, okay. It’s very alternative, edgy beats, nontraditional mix of instrumentals. No blow-you-out-of-the-house cheap synthesizer tricks. And no lollipop lyrics. Words that actually mean something.”
Jack was impressed. “Sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“It’s a big part of my life, Dad; of course I’ve thought about it.”
“It’s nice to have something you’re so passionate about.”
“Were you ever passionate about anything?”
“Not until I met your mother; then she sort of took up all the passion I had.”
Mikki made a face. “That is, like, so gross to tell your own daughter.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Before your mom came along, I was just drifting. I had my sports and all that. But not much else. And my dad was dying of cancer.”
“But you still had your mom.”
“Yeah, but we had our issues.”
“Didn’t get along? Like you and me?” she added, poking him in the side.
“Let’s just say I s
pent a lot more time at the O’Tooles’ instead of my house.”
“What was the issue?”
His expression turned serious. “I’ve never really talked about this with anyone, except your mother. There were no secrets between us.”
“Fine, I was just curious. You don’t have to tell me.”
Jack stopped walking, and she pulled up too.
“Okay, full confessional. It got to the point where I really wondered if my mom actually loved me.”
Mikki looked shocked. “She had to love you. She was your mother.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“Why did you think she didn’t?”
“Probably because she left when I was seventeen. Right after my dad died.”
“What? Nobody ever told me that.”
“Well, it’s not the sort of thing you announce to the world.”
“What happened?”
“She met some guy and moved to Florida. She kept the house in Cleveland, and I lived there until I married your mom and enlisted. She died in a boating accident when you were still a baby and I was still in the army.”
Mikki looked at him in amazement. “You lived there, what, by yourself?”
“Didn’t have any other relatives, so yeah.”
“But you weren’t even out of high school yet.”
“But I was over sixteen. It wasn’t like foster care was an option. I got part-time jobs to pay for expenses.”
“My God, Dad. I mean, you were all by yourself.”
“You like to spend time alone.”
“Yeah, but I could come downstairs and everybody would be there.”
“Well, I had your mom. She was my best friend. She helped me through some really tough times.”
When they got back to the Palace, Mikki said, “Thanks for the walk and talk.”
“Hope it’s one of many this summer.”
As she ran up the deck steps ahead of her father, Sammy appeared from around the side of the house. “You got an early start.” He glanced at Mikki as she went into the house. “Little father-daughter time?”
“She’s a pretty amazing kid, Sammy. Half her life I was carrying a gun for my country. The other half I was driving nails. I’ve got a lot to learn about her.”
“Probably why I never got married,” said Sammy. “Too complicated.”
“You ever regret it? No kids, no wife?”
“I didn’t, until I started hanging out with you Armstrongs.”
29
Later that week, before her dad left for work and she had to watch the kids, Mikki pulled on some shorts, tennis shoes, and a tank top, stretched her legs, and headed to the beach to run. She was naturally athletic, taking after her dad, but she’d never gone out for any school sports teams. The jocks at her school were obnoxious, she thought. And she disliked the competitiveness of sports. She simply liked to run, not try to beat someone running next to her.
She headed down the beach, listening to tunes on her iTouch. She’d put on lots of sunblock because her skin was still pale from the bleak Ohio winter and cold spring. The sun felt great; the views were breathtaking. Her arms pumped, and her long legs ate up ground at a rapid pace. People were fishing from the shore; kids were playing in the sand; teenagers were body surfing in the rough breakers. Though it was still early, a few people were already lying out on beach blankets, reading and talking.
“What the—” she gasped.
The guy had run right up beside her.
“Hey,” he said, grinning.
Mikki saw that it was the boy from the Mercedes convertible. He had on board shorts, no shirt. He was lean and muscled. Up close he looked like a Ralph Lauren model, which meant she instantly despised him.
She took out her earbuds, though she kept running.
“The beach is pretty wide,” she said back, trying to look indifferent, “so pick another spot.”
“I’m Blake Saunders.” As they ran, he put out his hand to shake.
She ignored it. “Good for you.”
“Can we stop running for a sec?”
“Why?”
“It’s important.”
She stopped, and he did too.
“Okay, what?” she demanded.
“I wanted to apologize for what happened the other day. Tiff can be a real piece of work.”
“Tiff?”
“Tiffany, Tiffany Murdoch.”
Mikki snorted. “She looks like a Tiffany.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty spoiled. Her dad was some big-shot investment guy in New York before they moved down here and built the biggest house on the beach.”
“So why do you hang out with her?”
“She can be fun.”
Mikki gave him a scathing look. “Oh yeah, I’m sure she can be fun.” She slapped her behind. “Hug ’em?”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way.”
Mikki said, “I’m going to finish my run.”
“Mind if I jog along with you? I’m the quarterback on the high school football team and I’m trying to keep in shape.”
“Suit yourself, QB.”