“Did he raise his voice or threaten you in any way? Because if he did, I’ll be going back.”
“It was nothing I couldn’t handle. He was high, but he was mostly a mess. He was full of bluster when he arrived, saying that Dale was furious about the cops coming out to the house. He was really mad that you’d been there twice.”
“I’m sure the last thing Dale wants is to draw attention to his illegal activities. Cops and reporters probably aren’t high on his list of favorite people. What else did he say?”
“He wanted me to give him another chance and he asked to see Elliott. I said no, of course. And then he called me a bitch. Because how dare I not let him come back into our lives.”
Brooks shook his head. “That is not okay.”
“I know it’s not, but it’s what he always says when he doesn’t get his way. Don’t go back there. He’s not worth another visit.” I laid my head against the back of the couch, closed my eyes, and sighed.
“You must be exhausted.”
“I am. I just want to put this day behind me.” I opened my eyes and looked over at Brooks. “I’m sorry I dragged you out of the house for nothing.”
“Do you want me to stay? I can sleep on the couch if you’re worried he might be back.”
Yes, but not because I’m afraid.
“I’ll be okay. I told Scott I’d call the police if he came back.”
“Make sure everything’s locked up tight. If he does come back, call the police first and then call me.”
“I will.” I walked him to the door but before he left, I said, “Brooks? How’s your mom?”
He shook his head and looked away. “Not good.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand, and when he squeezed back I felt the last remnants of our witness-reporter relationship disappear.
CHAPTER 30
BROOKS
I was sitting at my desk a few mornings later, typing up a story on vandalism in the city park, when I got the call from my dad.
“You should probably come home,” he said. “Nina said she’s showing some signs.”
My spirits sank. I stood up and grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair, filled with dread over what was about to happen yet wanting to hurry home so I wouldn’t miss the chance to say good-bye.
He met me at the front door, his eyes teary and red. For a split second I thought I might be too late, but then he said, “She doesn’t want her mask on anymore. She’s asking for you.”
Mom’s eyes were closed when I entered the room.
Nina smiled and patted my shoulder on her way out of the room. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
“Brooks?”
My mom’s voice had grown so weak I could barely hear her. “I’m here, Mom.” I reached for her hand.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
She held on until 8:43 p.m., my dad and I at her side. Her labored breathing grew slower throughout the afternoon and evening, and she took one last gasping breath, and then her chest didn’t rise again. Neither of us spoke. My dad put his head in his hands for a while and when he looked up, his face was wet with tears.
I didn’t move. I didn’t speak and I didn’t cry. I could feel the emotion trying to find an escape route, but nothing happened. I would have welcomed a release of some kind. Anything, really, but none came. The lump in my throat grew larger.
“I’ll go get Nina,” I said.
After that there were phone calls to make, and a flurry of people arriving. My mother’s body was taken away, and Nina gathered up her things and went home after giving my dad and me a hug.
I roamed the house, never staying in one place for very long. My head pounded as I paced the hallway between the kitchen and living room. Finally I told my dad I was going for a drive. “I need to get out of here for a little while,” I said. “Will you be okay?”
My dad was sipping a fresh cup of coffee and seemed to be doing a little better. One of his closest friends had arrived and he’d brought his wife with him. She’d sprung into action, fussing over my dad, brewing coffee, and insisting that he eat a piece of the pie they’d brought.
“I’ll be fine. Go,” he said.
The car was no better than the house. I drove aimlessly for a while, listening to the news on the radio until the noise bothered me so much I turned it off. It wasn’t until I pulled into her parking lot that I realized my destination had always been Daisy’s apartment. The route I’d taken might have been circuitous, but the goal was the same.
My watch said eleven o’clock. Way too late to show up unannounced, but I knocked on her door anyway, picturing her tiptoeing quietly to look through the peephole. It took a full minute because I’d undoubtedly roused her from a sound sleep. But then she opened the door far enough for me to cross the threshold and locked it again behind me.
The apartment was dark, save for a small beam of light that spilled into the hallway from her bedroom. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed her hair. I’d never seen it down before. It fell way past her shoulders and was slightly messy, like she’d been tossing and turning in her sleep before I arrived. She wore a pair of pajama pants and a tank top with narrow straps, one of which had fallen off her shoulder.
“What is it?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“My mom died.” It felt strange to say the words out loud. My voice sounded flat, unemotional.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, but she didn’t say anything else.
I wanted something that would take away the empty, restless feeling inside me. Something solid and real. She was standing near enough that one step was all I needed to close the gap between us. She must have taken a shower right before she went to bed because when I plunged my hands into all that hair, grabbing fistfuls and pulling her up against me, I felt the dampness and smelled the faint traces of her shampoo.
I moved my hands to the sides of her face and cupped it. She didn’t miss a beat when I pressed my lips to hers. She was probably wondering how I could possibly kiss her at a time like this, but it didn’t stop her from putting her arms around me and kissing me back like it was exactly what she needed, too.
Like the steady turn of a release valve, everything that had been bottled up inside me escaped slowly through that kiss. I hadn’t realized how rigidly I’d been holding my body until it slackened against hers. How tightly I’d been clenching my jaw until I relaxed it to kiss her. All the tension I’d been feeling disappeared when she opened her mouth and let me in.
It was a long, slow kiss, the kind that wasn’t meant to lead to anything else and was all the more powerful because of it. When I’d finally had enough I said, “I don’t know why I came. It’s late. I woke you up.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I don’t mind.”
“Go back to bed,” I whispered.
She nodded and I opened the door. “Lock this behind me,” I said, and I waited in the hallway until I heard the tumble of the lock clicking into place.
I shouldn’t have kissed her, because it would only send the wrong signal. Daisy deserved a man who was going to stick around for the long haul. Not someone who couldn’t wait to see Fenton in his rearview mirror.
That didn’t stop me from wanting to go back for another kiss.
The house was dark when I let myself in. My dad had retreated to his room. The bedroom I’d grown up in seemed the perfect place to finally let my emotions out, and when I was done I fell into a deep and exhausted sleep.
CHAPTER 31
DAISY
I didn’t have to work on the day of Brooks’s mom’s funeral. Knowing I didn’t have many options for child care, Celine had told me she’d be happy to watch Elliott for an hour or two on my days off if I had an appointment or needed to run an errand alone. I’d already confirmed that it would be okay to drop off Elliott, explaining to Celine that I had a funeral to attend.
I’d read the obituary and made note of the funeral arrangements but had g
one back and forth, wondering if I should go. I’d only spoken to Brooks’s parents once, and I’d never met the rest of his family. There was nothing wrong with paying my respects, but I worried that the gesture might seem too forward.
But that kiss.
Though I understood Brooks had likely only been seeking comfort, you don’t kiss a woman like that if you don’t at least feel something for her.
In light of that, not attending the funeral might have seemed callous, so at a little before two o’clock, I donned a conservative black dress, dropped off Elliott at Celine’s, and drove to the First United Methodist Church.
I didn’t see Brooks until shortly before the service started. He was sitting off to the side, in the section specifically reserved for the immediate family members of the deceased. He wore a black suit and a somber expression. His dad was sitting next to him, dabbing his eyes occasionally. Brooks bent his head to Theo, said something, and patted him on the back. Brooks didn’t seem to have a large family, and there were only about twelve people sitting in the family section.
An usher had led me to a seat at the end of a pew in a middle row. Mary McClain was younger than my grandmother, and the church filled quickly. Before my grandmother died, I had only been to one funeral. A good friend from college lost her mother when we were sophomores, and several of us drove to her hometown two hundred miles away to attend the service. I didn’t let on that I hadn’t spent much time in church, because everyone else seemed to know what to do and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I’d followed the lead of my friends: signing the guest book, taking a program from the usher, reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the end. The thing that had stood out the most was the organ which accompanied the hymns, rich and sorrowful and louder than I’d expected, the sound filling the church.
I’d been raised largely without religion. I’d been baptized Methodist, though not in the same church that Brooks and his family attended. I’d seen the picture of my mom standing at the altar with the pastor, holding me in her arms as my dad looked on, everyone smiling. When I was ten I asked my grandmother why we never went to church, and she said she’d stopped attending after my parents and sister died. It wasn’t until many years later that I finally understood what she meant.
Scott and I got married in the same Lutheran church his parents had been married in. Considering that the ceremony had only lasted twenty minutes, it hardly counted as a religious experience. The reception had proved to be a much lengthier affair, with drinking and dancing that lasted far into the evening.
At the end of Mary’s service, I stood when the usher dismissed our row and followed the line of mourners to a vestibule where coats were hung and which led to a side door. Outside, everyone gathered to wait until it was time to drive to the cemetery for the burial.
Brooks caught up with me there. “Daisy.”
“Hi,” I said, my voice gentle. “How are you doing?”
He gave me a solemn smile. “I’m okay.” He put his hand on my arm. “I’m glad you came.”
So am I.
“It was a beautiful service,” I said.
I waited as a man clapped Brooks on the shoulder and offered his condolences.
After the gentleman moved on, Brooks said, “We’re having a reception at the house afterward. I’d like it if you and Elliott could come.”
I nodded my head. “Sure. I’ll go pick him up from the sitter.”
“Let me give you my address.”
I dug my phone out of my purse and typed Brooks’s address into my GPS app. “We should be back in an hour or so.”
Someone called Brooks’s name. The hearse was idling near the exit of the church parking lot and I watched as people began walking to their cars. A long black limousine waited for him and his family.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Of course.” I reached out, gave his hand a squeeze, and said, “I’ll see you in a little while.”
*
“Why do I have to wear these clothes?” Elliott asked. When I picked him up from Celine’s he’d been wearing a T-shirt, tennis shoes, and a pair of jeans, all of which he would have preferred to keep wearing. Now he was dressed in khaki pants and a short-sleeved white button-down shirt with a clip-on plaid tie.
I squeezed him tight. “Because you look adorable in them. We’re going to Brooks’s house and we need to look our best. It’s respectful.”
He smiled. “I wike Bwooks. He found my army guy for me.”
“That’s right. So you want to look nice, don’t you?”
“I guess so.”
As I was combing his hair I said, “Remember when Nana went away and I told you she wasn’t going to live with us anymore?”
“I did not wike that. That maked me sad.”
I hugged him. “I know it did, sweetie. It made me sad, too. Brooks’s mom isn’t going to live with him anymore either.”
“Is he sad?”
I made a minor adjustment to his tie. “He’s very sad. So we’re going to his house to help him feel better. There will be other people there, relatives and friends of the family. We’ll tell Brooks how sorry we are, and that we’re thinking of him, and then we’ll come back home.”
“Will there be cookies?” Elliott asked.
I smiled, ruffled his hair, and said, “I think there will probably be something you’ll like.”
*
When I pulled up in front of Brooks’s house, I was able to find a parking spot two houses down, on the opposite side of the street. We made our way through the open front door, past groups of people talking and drinking coffee, holding plates in their hands. The hallway took us past an empty dining room and then opened into the living room area. The kitchen was off to the right.
Brooks was talking to an older woman and he excused himself when he noticed us. “Hi.” He bent down to greet Elliott. “A man in a tie. I like your style.”
Elliott laughed. “I’m not a man. I’m a wittle boy, remember?”
Brooks laughed, too. He was undeniably gorgeous when he smiled, but when he laughed it transported him to a different level altogether. His eyes sparkled and I noticed how white and even his teeth were when he opened his mouth. There were other things I thought of when I saw his mouth, but I told myself that this was not the time or the place to be thinking about that.
“Got your army guy with you?” Brooks asked.
Elliott reached into his pocket and pulled it out. He looked like he might have been considering giving it to Brooks, but then he quickly shoved it back in his pocket.
“Are you hungry?”
“I could eat a cookie,” Elliott said.
“Will pie do?”
“I wike pie!”
“Good, because I think there’s more than one to choose from.” Brooks stood up and looked beyond Elliott. “Excuse me,” he said. “It looks like my aunt needs me. Please, fix a plate. Have some pie.”
“Go,” I said. “We’ll be fine.” I took Elliott by the hand and led him into the kitchen. I found a seat for him at the kitchen table and stood next to it, eating from my own plate and saying hello when people greeted me on their way to the stove or refrigerator. The kitchen seemed to be filled with women. They surrounded Brooks’s dad when he entered the room, making sure his coffee cup was full and shooing him back out of the room when he tried to help.
When Elliott was done eating, I cleaned him up as best I could and we moved into the living room to free up space for someone else at the table. Theo sat in an armchair, coffee cup in hand.
“Let’s go talk to Brooks’s dad for a minute, Elliott.”
Theo smiled as we approached.
“Hello, Mr. McClain. I’m Daisy DiStefano. We met briefly at the hospital. This is my son, Elliott. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He shook my hand and said, “Please. Call me Theo. It’s nice to see you again.”
“What is that, Feo?” Elliott asked, pointing to a framed picture that sat on the table next to Theo’
s chair. A man with longish curly hair stood beside a fish that stood at least nine feet from the spear-shaped tip of its jaw to the end of its tail.
“It’s a blue marlin. I caught it in Hawaii about forty years ago. What do you think about that?”
Elliott looked mesmerized. “It’s very big.”
“Do you like to fish?”
Elliott shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody ever taked me fishing before.”
“Would you like to go fishing with me sometime?”
“I would, I would!” Elliott said. He jumped up and down, but then his expression turned serious. “I would have to ask Mama first.”
“Of course,” Theo said. “She’s welcome to come with us.”
I smiled. “As long as I don’t have to put any worms on a hook.”
I hadn’t seen Brooks for a while. Slowly, I searched the sea of faces and found him at the exact moment he appeared to have found me. Both of our heads had been moving as we scanned the room and they stilled simultaneously as we locked eyes. Something good, something unspoken, passed between us. He crossed the room.
“Sorry to leave you alone,” he said.
“It’s fine, really. You’ve got lots of people to talk to. I’m afraid Elliott is monopolizing your dad. They’ve been discussing the finer points of fishing.”
We watched Theo smile as he pretended to be a shark while Elliott pretended to reel him in.
“My dad loves kids,” Brooks said. “Always has.”
“You must be pretty tired.”
“I’m okay,” he said. “You know what it’s like, and you went through it alone.”
“I had help. I don’t know what I would have done without Pam and Shane.”
“Did you and Elliott get something to eat?” he asked.
“Yes. You’ll notice my son is wearing his pie on the front of his shirt.”
“Ah. Cherry, I see.”
I laughed. “Of course it was.” It was almost six by then. “I think we’re going to head out. I need to get Elliott out of his clothes and into the bathtub before he manages to transfer the pie from his shirt onto every surface of your home.”