“You live with this?” I asked Nicole.
“Daily,” she said.
“She loves me,” Kailamai said.
Nicole lifted a piece of sushi with her chopstick. “I do,” she replied. “But I also love raw tuna.”
I went to bed around ten while Kailamai and Nicole stayed in the kitchen and talked. As I plugged in my cell phone to recharge it, I received a text from Falene. All it said was that she would be in LA around noon. I texted back to see if she needed a ride or a place to stay, but she didn’t respond.
CHAPTER
Twenty-Two
Today I said goodbye to two people I love.
Alan Christoffersen’s diary
I woke the next morning to Nicole’s and Kailamai’s voices in the kitchen. I pulled on a robe and walked out. The kitchen was a mess.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Nicole said.
“What are you concocting in here?” I asked.
“Eggs Benedict,” Nicole replied. “It will be a few more minutes.”
I sat down at the table. Kailamai sat down next to me. “Do you want to hear a joke?”
I rubbed a hand across my face. “Sure.”
“A new preacher was asked to speak at a country funeral. He had never been to the area where the funeral was and he got lost in the woods. After wandering around for nearly an hour he came upon some men gathered around an open grave. The preacher apologized for being late and started in. Feeling bad that the deceased man only had the diggers around his grave, the preacher tried to make up for it by giving the best eulogy he could. He preached with such passion that even the workers were shouting, ‘Praise God’ and ‘Glory be!’
“After the eulogy one of the diggers said to the preacher, ‘Preacher, that was inspirin’. I ain’t never seen anything like that before, and I’ve been puttin’ in septic tanks for twenty years!’ ”
“Kailamai,” Nicole said indignantly. “Really?”
She flushed. “I asked if he wanted to hear it.”
“About a funeral?” Nicole said.
“I’m sorry,” Kailamai said.
“It’s okay,” I said. I whispered to her, “It was pretty funny.”
Kailamai grinned furtively. “I thought so.”
A few minutes later Nicole brought over our breakfasts.
“You really don’t need to go to all this trouble,” I said. “I’m used to eating light.”
“Who said I’m doing it for you?” she said, grinning.
After Kailamai went upstairs to get ready, Nicole said, “I’m sorry about that joke. Kailamai doesn’t know how to deal with death.”
“That makes two of us,” I said. “After all she’s been through, it’s amazing the changes she’s made. You’ve done a remarkable job with her.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m her mother.”
“You are,” I said.
She smiled. A moment later she asked, “Have you heard from Falene?”
“Just a text. She said her flight will be in around noon.”
“That’s good.” She breathed out. “Are you picking her up?”
“I offered, but she never responded.”
“Give her some time,” Nicole said. “Things will work out.”
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. Unlike Nicole, I hadn’t really thought about what I would wear to the viewing, and I ended up running out at the last moment to buy some loafers, a dress shirt, and a two-piece suit. I got home just in time to shower and get dressed. I borrowed one of my father’s ties.
Before leaving I went to my room and got the letter that Falene had written. I folded it in half and put it in my coat pocket.
Nicole suggested that we drive separately to the funeral home, so I would be free to stay out late with Falene. I wondered why I still hadn’t heard from her.
The viewing was scheduled to start at six, and at the funeral director’s request we arrived an hour early. I had taken just a few steps into the chapel when I froze. Seeing the casket at the front of the room brought forth a rush of such painful memories that I had to sit down. Nicole stood next to me, rubbing my back. It took me several minutes before I could look at my father’s body.
He was dressed in his navy blue suit with a solid, light blue tie and a matching handkerchief. After I had walked away from the casket Nicole and Kailamai approached. Nicole said softly, “He looks good.”
“For being dead,” Kailamai replied.
“Stop it,” Nicole said.
“I’m sorry,” Kailamai said.
The chapel wasn’t large, but it was more than sufficient for the modest attendance we expected. In one corner of the room there was a Steinway grand piano. Near the entryway there was a round burled walnut table with an easel holding a gold-framed picture of my father in his military dress uniform and a wedding picture of my parents. There was also a felt-lined case of his war medals, something my mother had put together for him before I was born. I hadn’t provided the memorabilia, so I assumed my father had left it with them years before.
A few minutes before six o’clock a woman sat down at the piano and began playing “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha. If lives had theme songs, “The Impossible Dream” would have been my father’s.
Guests began arriving a few minutes before the hour. There was a sizable crowd, much larger than I’d expected. It was a testament to the man my father was. I believe every client he’d ever had was there.
I stood next to the casket and thanked people for coming. Some of them were grieving heavily, and I heard story after story about how good my father had been to people. I felt sad that I hadn’t known all this about him, but my father wasn’t one to talk about the good that he’d done.
There were many women, some whose names I recognized from the packages that had been left on the doorstep over the last few weeks. An attractive, middle-aged woman with short, dark hair introduced herself as Gretchen O’Connor. I remembered the name from the family history. She was the woman my father almost married. I noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
There were many of my father’s buddies from Vietnam. They approached the casket as a group. They spoke of my father’s courage and leadership. One told me that a common occurrence in Vietnam was fragging, where platoon leaders were so disliked by their soldiers that they were killed by grenades thrown by their own men. He said, “That never would have happened with your father. Every one of us would have taken a bullet for him.” As he said this all the men nodded in agreement.
An hour into the viewing Nicole brought me a glass of water. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yes.”
“Has she come?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“She’ll come,” she said.
It was a little past eight thirty when I saw Falene standing at the end of the line, near the chapel entrance. As always she looked strikingly gorgeous. Still, she looked different. Though she always dressed nicely, tonight her clothes looked expensive. It might sound strange to say it, but she looked expensive—her makeup and jewelry and shoes, even the way she carried herself. Her new world had changed her appearance. I wondered if the change was more than skin deep.
Our glances met, and I motioned for her to come up. Her beautiful brown eyes were filled with tears as she put her arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Alan. You don’t deserve this.”
I just held her. After we separated she said, “I’m sorry I’m so late.”
“I was wondering if you were going to make it.”
“Me too,” she said. “The taxi driver took me to the wrong place. Twice. He barely spoke English.”
“I’m glad you made it,” I said. “You look beautiful.”
She smiled sadly. “So do you.” She glanced back at the line of mourners. “You have a lot of people here. We can talk after you’re done.” We embraced once more, then she walked to the back of the room.
It took another full hour to go thr
ough the rest of the line. One of the visitors was my father’s friend Carroll, the private investigator who had found Falene for me. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said gruffly. “Your father was a fine man. A man’s man. The world’s a darker place without him.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“By the way, did you get my message about the woman you were looking for?”
I nodded. “Yes. Thank you. In fact, that’s her right there.”
He turned and looked at Falene, his gaze lingering on her longer than was appropriate. “Wow, she’s a looker,” he said, finally turning back. “No wonder you wanted to hunt her down. I’m glad that worked out.”
I just nodded, bothered by his assessment but still in his debt for finding her. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anything for your father,” he said. “You make him proud.”
At one point I noticed Nicole talking to Falene. To my relief they both looked comfortable. When the line had finally dwindled, Nicole walked up to me. “Kailamai and I are going back to the house. Do you need anything?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Thank you for everything today.”
She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Good luck.” She walked off. Falene had been sitting quietly in a tucked leather chair across the room. She stood and walked to me. “May I see your father?”
“Of course.”
She walked to the side of the casket. Her eyes filled with tears. I stepped up beside her. She said, “I know you two weren’t always really close, but he loved you. When I was looking for you in Spokane . . . he was so upset.” She turned and looked at me. “What I would have given to have had a father like that.”
A moment later the funeral director walked up to us. “It’s after nine thirty, so I’ve locked the front door,” he said. “It was a beautiful evening—a real tribute to your father.”
“It was nice,” I said.
“I tell you, your father was a pleasure to work with. We don’t need to talk about the details right now, but at your convenience, give us a call and we’ll go over his burial plans in Colorado.”
I nodded my assent.
“Oh, and on your way out remember to take your pictures and medal display. I’m sure you’ll want those.”
“Of course.”
“I’m going to shut the casket now. Would you like another moment?”
“Please.”
The director stepped aside. Again I approached the casket. I looked at him for a moment, then said, “Thank you for being my father. I hope you’re with Mom.” I closed my eyes as they filled with tears. Then I leaned forward, kissed his forehead, and turned to the director. “Okay.” I stepped away from the casket, my eyes still fixed on my father’s body.
The funeral director stepped forward. He reached inside the casket and unlatched the lid, then slowly shut it. Another pang of emotion filled my chest, and Falene put her hand on my lower back.
The director turned back to me. “I need to turn the lights out in about fifteen minutes. You can let yourself out the front door.” He walked out of the room.
I took a deep breath, then turned to Falene. “We can talk in my car.”
“Okay,” she said softly. As long and as well as I had known her, at that moment I couldn’t read her.
I collected the pictures from the display, and Falene carried the case of my father’s medals.
“It’s a beautiful night,” I said.
“It’s a lot warmer here than it is in New York. It was in the thirties at JFK. Maybe not even that.”
“How was your flight?”
“Long,” she said. “The guy sitting next to me had sneaked a fifth onto the plane. He was sloshed by the time we landed. He kept trying to touch me. The police had to carry him off.”
“Lovely,” I said.
“At least he didn’t throw up on me,” she said.
We put the pictures and medal case in the trunk. Then I opened the door for her and she climbed in. I got in the other side and started the car.
“Do you want to go somewhere?” I asked.
“Whatever you want,” she replied.
I drove to the arboretum. It was after hours and the park was closed, but after spending so much of my childhood there I knew how to sneak in. We walked in the dark along the back fence to a section of the grounds near a pond where McKale and I used to catch crayfish. There was a streetlamp about thirty yards from the bench, providing enough illumination for us to see. We sat down next to each other.
“This is where you got married, isn’t it?” Falene said.
“Over there on the other side of the entry. It’s a little better weather tonight.” I looked into her eyes and could see the moon’s reflection from the pond. “Thank you for coming,” I said.
“I wanted to be here for you.”
“You’ve always been there for me,” I said.
“Except for when I wasn’t,” she replied. I guessed that she was referring to what I’d said to her on the phone, which made me regret saying it even more.
I said, “You asked how I found you. I hired a private investigator. It took him a while to track you down. I think he called every modeling agency in New York.”
She looked at me quizzically. “Why would you go to so much trouble?”
“You don’t know why?”
She lightly shook her head.
I reached in my pocket and pulled out the letter she had written me. “It’s like you wrote: love doesn’t know its depth until its absence. It wasn’t until after you left that I knew how much you meant to me. And how much I wanted you in my life.” I tried to read her face for a reaction, but she looked more upset by my confession than pleased. Finally I said, “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
She looked up at me. “You know I care about you, right?”
I hated the sound of that. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “When I was a freshman in high school I wanted to make friends, so I tried out for cheerleading. You had to do this routine. I had never taken gymnastics or dance classes like the other girls, but I thought that maybe I could watch the others and learn fast.
“The tryouts were held after school. I sat there alone waiting my turn. Just before my routine a couple of the popular girls came up to me. I was nervous but kind of excited that they would talk to me. One of them said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘The same thing as you.’ She rolled her eyes and said, ‘I doubt that.’ Then the other girl said, ‘I guess they’ll let anyone try out.’
“I was crushed. I still tried out, mostly just to show them that they couldn’t intimidate me, but it was humiliating. And I failed miserably. They didn’t even let me finish my routine. Those two girls became cheerleaders and I was the girl behind the bleachers with whatever boy wanted me. That experience taught me that the surest way to misery was to try to be something you’re not.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“It has everything to do with us,” she said. “Our worlds are completely different. I wanted to believe otherwise, but I was just lying to myself. Look at tonight. Your father loved you. I don’t even know my father’s name.”
“And that was your fault?”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, it’s just what it is. I’m from Stockton, you’re from Pasadena. You graduated from one of the best graphic colleges in the country, I barely got out of high school.”
“And you’re smarter than most of my clients,” I said. “You were a teenager and providing for your family, taking care of an alcoholic mother and keeping your brother off the streets. Half the graduates of Harvard couldn’t have pulled off what you did.”
“You don’t get a degree for survival,” she said.
“In the end, survival is the only degree that matters,” I said. “It’s the core human experience.”
“Have you forgotten who I was before you found me? I worked in a strip club.”
“I don’t care about your past. Look at who you
’ve become.”
She shook her head. “Who I’ve become? I’m the same person I’ve always been. I used to think I had changed, but I haven’t. Inside I’m still that same girl behind the bleachers. Even at the modeling agency. Why can’t you see that?”
“Why can’t you see how good you really are? When everything came crashing down in my life, you were the only one who was loyal. The only one. When my heart was broken and I was alone, you took me in. When I disappeared in Spokane, you looked for me until you found me. The only other person who has stood by me like that was McKale.”
“I’m not McKale,” she said angrily.
“I didn’t say you were. I said you were loyal like her. And good like her.”
“I’m not good.”
“I know you’re good, Falene. I’ve seen it. You don’t think McKale had her faults?”
“McKale never danced nude for drunk old men.”
“McKale was never homeless with a wayward brother.”
She leaned closer and said softly, “Alan, you’re not being honest. I am what I am.”
“You’re the one who’s not being honest. I know who you are, even if you don’t. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
She turned away from me.
“You said you loved me,” I said. “I love you too. That’s the reality.” I took her chin in my hand and lifted her head to look at me. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Falene, I’m willing to take a chance on us. Why won’t you?”
She again turned away from me. Tears rolled down her cheeks. When she could speak she said softly, “Because I can’t, Alan.”
“Why not?” I said. “Give me one good reason.”