Coming Home (39 page)

He scowled and muttered, “The curse of the Irish.”

“I think they’re cute.  So what do you think?”

He looked up from his book.  “About what?”

“Who I should have an affair with.”

His eyes made a slow perusal of her, head to feet and back,
lingering briefly on her breasts.  “I don’t know,” he said, “but if you run
around looking like that, you’ll have no shortage of potential victims.”

She felt an all-over heat that had nothing to do with the sun. 
“This was your idea,” she accused.

“What was?”

“This
thing
I’m hardly wearing.”

“I’d say you’re doing a pretty spectacular job of wearing it,
Fiore.”

“How would you know?  You’ve had your nose stuck in that book ever
since we got here.”

“Not every single minute,” he said.

“Oh, please,” she said.  “I’m going down to the water.” 

She stood up, resisting the urge to adjust her bathing suit to
adequately cover her bottom.  Ignoring him, she walked determinedly across the
sand to the water’s edge and waded into the surf.  She was waist high when a
bright red Frisbee hit the water directly in front of her.  She picked it up
and turned around to see Rob standing a few feet away.  “Truce?” he said.

She grinned wickedly and sent the Frisbee sailing.  “Go fetch.”

Like an overgrown golden retriever, he splashed off to catch up
with the Frisbee.  He shot it back to her, and she jumped to catch it.  They
continued the game until they grew tired, returning damp and sandy to their
beach chairs.  “I’m starved,” she said.  “Let’s get something to eat.”

He pulled on a tee shirt and she threw her beach jacket over her
shoulders and they went in search of sustenance.  They found it at a beachside
cafe, where they sat at a wrought-iron table beneath a pink and white striped
umbrella and ordered the catch of the day.  While they waited for it to arrive,
Casey sipped her strawberry daiquiri and studied the couples sitting at the
other tables.  The island was a regular Noah’s Ark.  Everybody seemed to be in
pairs, most of them young and tanned and in love.  “I feel like a misfit,” she
said.  “I think we’re the only people on this island who aren’t honeymooners.”

Rob set down his bottle of Heineken and looked around.  “Funny,”
he said, “I never noticed it the last time I was here.”

“That,” she said, “is because you were here with the vivacious
Kiki.  You probably never left your hotel room.”

“Fiore,” he said, “you’re a prude.  What the hell is so wrong with
recreational sex?”

“I am not a prude.  I told you I’d decided to have an affair. 
Does that sound prudish to you?”

“I know you too well.  You’ll never go through with it.”

“You don’t know me half as well as you think you do, MacKenzie. 
I’m not exactly a stranger to the delights of recreational sex.  It may have
been a while, but I haven’t completely forgotten.”

He sipped his beer.  “If you’re married,” he said, “it doesn’t
count.”

Her mouth fell open.  “That’s not the way I remember it.”

“That’s because you have no basis for comparison.”

“Oh, really?  Well, for your information, great oracle, Danny and
I had sex
before
we were married.”  Smugly, she added, “More than once.”

“Doesn’t count.”

She bristled.  “And why not?”

“You and Danny,” he said, “got married three days after you met. 
That’s not recreational sex, it’s commitment.”

“And just what the hell is wrong with commitment?”

He held up both hands in a gesture of defenselessness.  “I didn’t
say there was anything wrong with it.  I just said it wasn’t the same thing.”

“Oy,” she said.  “I think I need another drink.”

***

“I don’t give a damn what you think,” Danny told Anna Montoya, “or
why you did what you did.  But there’s one thing I want from you.  I want to
know who my father is.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she took a drag on her cigarette.  Exhaled. 
“Why should I tell you?” she asked.

“Because I’ve lived thirty-six years as a bastard, and I have a
right to know the truth.  I have to know where the hell I’m coming from before
I can figure out where I’m going.”

She continued to smoke her cigarette.  When she was done, she
crushed it out in the ashtray.  “His name was Eddie,” she said.  “Eddie
Carpenter.  He was a sailor, stationed at the Navy Yard over to Charlestown.”

“And?”

She shrugged.  “We had a thing for a while.  Then he shipped out,
and I never heard from him again.”

He raked trembling hands through his hair.  “Do you know anything
else about him?  Where he was from?  Anything?”

“Somewhere in the Midwest.  Iowa?  Idaho?  Something like that. 
Geez, I haven’t thought of Eddie in years.  He was one hell of a looker.”  Her
thoughtful expression momentarily softened her face, erasing years from her
age.  “Must’ve been a strong gene pool,” she said.  “You’re the spitting image
of him.”

Danny leaned forward intently.  “Did he know about me?”

“Nah.  He was gone before I ever figured out why I was throwing up
every morning.”

He left her there on the couch, half-drunk, still musing over her
star-crossed romance with the dashing Eddie Carpenter.  At the door, he paused
to look around the kitchen, at the broken window over the sink, the empty
whiskey bottle on the table, the roaches that ran among the toast crumbs.  He
cursed and wheeled back around.  Her attention was riveted on
The Price is
Right
, and he stood in the doorway with his mouth open, not sure what to
call her. 
Anna?  Mother?  Mom?
 

“Mama?” he said quietly, inevitably, the only name he’d ever
called her.

When she looked up, her face softened, and he saw traces of the
young girl he remembered.  “It’s been a long time,” she said, “since anybody
called me that.”

“This place is a hellhole,” he said.  “Let me move you out of
here.  Some place clean, in a decent neighborhood.”

“I been here thirty years, Danny.  This is home.”

“It’s a rat-infested slum.”

“Yeah, but it’s my slum.  It’s bought and paid for, and nobody can
tell me what to do or how to do it.  I got no landlord knocking down my door,
nobody telling me how to live my life.  I got my independence, Danny.”

For some inexplicable reason, he understood.  “Do you suppose,” he
said, “I could stop by and visit you once in a while?”

“You really want to?”

He thought about it.  “Yes,” he said.  “I really want to.”

“Somebody might steal the hubcaps off that fancy car you’re
driving.”

He came close to smiling.  “I’ll take that chance,” he said.

“Danny?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted you to know that there ain’t been a single day in
the last thirty years that I didn’t think about you.”

***

She slept soundly that night and awoke feeling reborn.  She
dragged Rob out of bed at seven and pushed his grumbling form toward the
shower.  He emerged human, and they ran on the beach for an hour.  After
breakfast, they set up their beach chairs near the water and spent the morning
lounging in the sun and drinking wine coolers until they both had a buzz going.
 “This is decadent,” she said.  “Not even noon, and we’re both half crocked.”

He lay flat on his back, knees spread, his wine cooler dangling
from slack fingertips.  “Gives you a whole new perspective on life, doesn’t
it?”

“I may never go back.  I may just stay here and pick up some
nineteen-year-old stud muffin and spend my sunset years in drunken squalor.”

“You’ve got a mile or two to go,” he said, studying her idly,
“before you hit your sunset years.”

She adjusted her shoulder strap.  “Shut up,” she said, “and pass
me another wine cooler.”

“So,” he said, uncapping it and handing it to her, “you’ve decided
on a stud muffin?”

She lifted her sunglasses and peered at him from beneath them. 
“Excuse me?”

“For that mythical affair you keep talking about having.”

“Oh.”  She tugged discreetly at her bikini bottom.  “I haven’t
decided on anyone yet.  I’m still working on it.”

“Maybe I can help.  I know lots of people.”

“Help like yours,” she said, “I don’t need.”

He looked hurt.  “Just to show you I’m a prince among men,” he
said, “I’m going to ignore that remark.”

“Come on, Rob.  You know it’s not that easy.  Surely you’ve heard
of great chemistry?”

“Geez, Fiore, you and I have great chemistry, but I don’t see us
rushing to jump each other’s bones.”

This time, she didn’t bother to lift her glasses.  She just stared
at him through them.  “Be serious,” she said.  “You know I don’t think of you
that way.”

He opened another wine cooler and took a long, slow swallow. 
“Okay,” he said.  “Let’s look at what we have here.  At one end of the
spectrum, the Pope.  At the other end, Attila the Hun.  In between, we have one
giant question mark.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I am not.”

“Look,” she said, “celibacy is an unnatural condition.  For women
as well as men.  Don’t you think I’m entitled to the same fun you guys have
been enjoying all your lives?”

“Sweetheart,” he said, suddenly serious, “I think you’re long
overdue.”

***

Danny held the scrap of paper in his hand, staring at the
telephone number he’d read so many times he could have reeled it off in his
sleep.  This wouldn’t be like confronting his mother.  If Anna had told the
truth, his father didn’t even know he existed.  What if he made a fool of
himself?  What if Carpenter refused to acknowledge him?  What if his mother had
lied?

With trembling hands, he picked up the phone and punched in the
number to his father’s home in Iowa.  It rang several times before a man
answered.  Danny cleared his throat.  “Hello,” he said.   “I’m looking for
Eddie Carpenter.”

“Yeah, this is Eddie.”

His innards knotted until he realized the voice was far too
young.  Carpenter’s son, perhaps? 
His brother
.  Danny closed his eyes
and swallowed.  “This would be the Eddie Carpenter who was in the Navy back
around 1950.”

“That would be my dad.  Hold on.”

The young man dropped the phone, and Danny could hear the murmur
of conversation in the background.  Then an older man’s voice said, “This is
Eddie Carpenter.  Can I help you?”

Danny wet his lips.  “I think so,” he said.  “My name is Danny
Fiore, and I’m looking for a man named Eddie Carpenter who was a sailor
stationed at Boston Navy Yard back in the winter of 1950.”

“I was stationed in Boston for a couple of months.  Who did you
say you were?”

“Do you remember a girl named Anna?  Anna Fiore?  A pretty little
dark-haired Italian girl?”

There was a pause.  Then:  “I remember her.  Who the hell are
you?”

Danny cleared his throat.   “It appears,” he said, “that I’m your
son.”

***

He flew from LAX to O’Hare, then hopped a commuter to Dubuque. 
From there, his final destination was a town so small that he flew in on a
six-seater twin-engine turboprop.  He’d never quite grasped the concept of
family.  Growing up, there’d been just his grandmother.  No mother, no father,
no aunts or uncles or cousins.  As a result, he’d never completely understood
Casey’s attachment to her various relatives, or Rob’s complex relationships
with an extended family so large it made the Kennedys look like hermits. 

But the moment he saw Eddie Carpenter standing in the single room
that served as a terminal, legs braced apart, hands nervously jingling the
coins in his pockets, Danny understood.  The man who stared back at him shared
his blue eyes, his full lower lip, his dimples.  Carpenter’s hair had started
to gray, but his shoulders were broad, his body solid and still muscular,
although he was in his mid-fifties. 
This
, Danny thought,
is what
I’ll look like in twenty years.

They stood for a long time, just staring at each other, before
Carpenter said in a shaky voice tinged with a distinctive Midwestern twang,
“I’ll be damned.”  And held out his hand.

Fully intending to shake hands and then coolly retreat back into
his personal space, Danny grasped his father’s hand.  But as they stood there,
hands clasped, blue eyes studying identical blue eyes, something amazing
happened.

He discovered that he couldn’t let go.

Carpenter squeezed his hand.  Danny squeezed back.  And then his
father spoke the words that would change his life, the words that Danny had
waited thirty-six years to hear:  “Welcome home, son.”