It's. Nice. Outside. (23 page)

“Who gives a shit?” Mindy said. With that, she stormed off toward the Old Country Store, the very epicenter of bullshit.

I watched her leave. “We raised a couple of sweet angels, you know that? Yes, sir, we did something right. Nothing but love in those girls. Nothing but love.”

“Where. Mindy. Be?”

“Maybe the girls should just go home,” Mary said.

“Come on. We had a bad day, that's all. Things will get better. We'll have dinner, find a nice hotel, maybe all go for a swim, maybe go out for ice cream. It'll be fine.”

“Everything will always be okay,” she said.

“It will be.”

“Wish I had your attitude.” She went back to her menu.

“Hey, I'll lend it to you. You can have it for a week.”

Mary shook her head, but smiled a little.

I was giving serious consideration to reaching for her hand when my phone went off. Rita.
God damn her!

“Who's that?”

I fumbled to turn it off. “Sal.”

“Aren't you going to get it?”

“I don't want to talk to him. I'll call him later.”

“Let me talk to him then.”

“Sal! Me. Talk!”

“No, not now. We're eating. We'll call him later.”

Ethan made a grab for my phone. “Sal!”

I jammed my phone in my pocket. “No! We're eating.”

“We're not eating,” Mary said.

The girls miraculously saved me by marching back into the restaurant like a pair of Imperial Stormtroopers. Mindy sat down, pulling her chair close to the table, but Karen remained standing.

“You taking our order or what?” Mindy asked.

“I'm meeting someone,” Karen said.

“What?” I asked. “Who?”

“I have a friend here from college, Donna Schrader, and I'm meeting up with her for dinner. She just called.”

“Here?” Mary asked. “I don't even know where we are.”

“You have a friend in Fredericksburg?” I asked.

“Yes. She was a DG, and we're meeting up at a place in town. So, can I have the car?”

“I thought we could all eat together,” I said.

“I've had enough family time today,” Karen said. “There's a Hampton Inn five miles from here. They have rooms. There's no Marriott. I'll meet you back there later tonight.”

“How late are you going to be?” Mary asked.

“I don't know.” She turned to me. “Can I take the other van, the rental?”

“Ask your mother.”

Mary studied Karen, her face impassive, Buddha-like. “Don't be too late. We have another long day tomorrow.”

Karen snatched the keys from the table, and left.

“Where? Karen. Be?”

“She'll be back,” Mary said.

“That's strange,” I said. “Who the hell is this Donna?”

“She's meeting the Jaw.” Mindy said this from behind her menu.

“What?” Mary asked.

“Roger. She's meeting him.”

“Roger?” I took a hold of Mindy's menu and lowered it so I could see her face. “What are you talking about? Roger.”

Mindy avoided my eyes. “I just heard her on her phone in the bathroom. She talks so loud. They've been talking the whole trip, I think. They're going to meet somewhere.”

“Roger? Really? Are you serious?”

“That's what I heard.” Before we could bombard her with more questions, Mindy stood abruptly and said, “I got to make a call,” and jetted off.

“Where. Mindy. Be?”

“Roger? Do you believe that? That's crazy!” I said. “And why would she want to see him?”

Mary looked a little stunned. “I don't know what's going on.”

“You think maybe he's following us? He must be! How else can they be meeting?”

Mary gazed intently out the window, her mouth a straight line. “I said, I don't know.”

“I'm going to try to stop her.” I stood. “I can catch her.”

“No, you're not. Sit down.” Mary pulled her red purse onto the table and began searching through it. “She's almost thirty years old.”

“Are you sure?”

“She's a big girl. Sit down.”

“Where. Karen. Be?”

I sat back down and looked out the window, at the highway, and watched cars and trucks move by. My daughter was probably already on that highway, heading to meet up with a man I detested. I didn't like this turn of events, I didn't like it at all.

*   *   *

After Mindy returned to the table and Mary and I interrogated her on exactly what she heard; and after I ordered the chicken-fried chicken but didn't eat any of it; and after I asked, “She said the name Roger, you're sure of that, I mean, you heard her say the name Roger?”; and after Mindy said/yelled, “yes, yes, yes!”; and after I cut up my chicken-fried chicken into small pieces and gave them to Ethan because he was still hungry even after his chicken-fried steak; and after we were all quiet, lost in our own, presumably-worried-about-Karen, wonder-where-she is thoughts; and after Mindy said, “What the fuck is a cracker barrel anyway?” and I said, “You know, you should be thinking about Karen”; and after I started wondering what the fuck a cracker barrel was; and after Mindy asked the waitress what it was; and after the waitress said she wasn't sure but that it might have been a barrel used in “olden times”; and after I ordered another chicken-fried chicken dinner because despite my worries over Karen, I realized I actually was hungry; and after Mindy snorted and said, “Olden times, what the fuck?” under her breath; and after I said, “Stop acting so New York”; and after Mindy said, “What does that mean”; and after I said, “You know what I mean”; and after Mindy said, “No I don't”; and after I said, “Yes, you do, Miss Always Dresses in Black”; and after Mary slammed the table with her hand and yelled, “Will you two please stop it!”; and after Mindy and I stopped it; and after I finished my chicken-fried chicken and briefly considered ordering the fried ice cream for dessert but instead asked for the bill (which wasn't fried), we checked into the Hampton Inn, where I gave Ethan his bath.

“Oh, man, poor Karen,” I said, drying him off with a towel. “I hope she knows what she's doing.”

Ethan, who seemed to understand that Karen's disappearance was cause for concern, looked at me with wider-than-usual eyes and held up his hands in question. “Where. Karen. Be?”

“She's with Roger, we think. Who apparently isn't gay, by the way.”

“Call.”

“Call? You mean, Karen?”

“Yes! Me. Call.”

“Oh, sure.” I gave him his old cell phone, then sat on the bed while he punched numbers, pleased that he was doing something in context of the situation.

“Karen?”

“Tell her to come home,” I said. “Tell her Roger is a dirtbag. Tell her, once a cheater, always a cheater. Wait a minute—don't tell her that. That's not necessarily true.”

“Hi. Karen!”

“Tell her come home!”

“Home!”

“Tell her we love you!”

“Yes!”

“Tell her, she will get over this. Tell her to forget the Jaw.”

“Forget. The. Jaw!”

I stopped, surprised. Those were new words for him. Ethan's vocabulary was very limited, and any new words, any addition other than possibly the f-bomb, was cause for celebration. “Right! Exactly! Forget the Jaw! That's great! Do you know what a jaw is?”

He reached out and touched my jaw.

“Right! Yes!” I wished Karen were here to witness this breakthrough. I was teaching him, stretching him after all. He would be reading and writing soon, then going to college, maybe just a state school, but still. “Very good! Roger has a big jaw. And he's a cheating slime bucket, but then again, who am I to talk, huh? I'm in an awkward position here, very awkward, don't you think? I got Rita calling me now. Rita! What's that all about, do you think? Rita's going to ruin everything. Stupid Rita!”

“Reeeeta!”

I froze. Another new word. But not a good one. In fact, of all the words in the King's speech, all of them, this was the one I never wanted my verbally challenged son to master and then yell eighty to ninety times a day.

I paused, knowing my next move was crucial. If I emphasized the wrongness of this word, admonished him for saying it, overreacted, it would be forever ingrained in his lexicon. I had made that mistake years ago with
shit
,
shut up
, and
idiot
. I simply could not make the same mistake with Rita.

“Hey, I got an idea,” I said. “Want to watch the Illini game?”

He pointed a finger upward. “Yes!”

“Good. Illini! Yes, let's do that. Let's cleanse our minds with that! Let's forget everything else, wipe the slate clean. Perfect!” I put on his pajamas and grabbed my laptop.

Years ago my beloved Fighting Illini had staged the most memorable comeback in NCAA tournament history, scoring fifteen points in a frantic, four-minute span to force overtime against the University of Arizona. They would go on to win and advance to their first Final Four in sixteen years. I had attended that game with Sal, we had great seats, and had since watched tapes and rebroadcasts of it dozens and dozens of times with Ethan, the excitement and mounting disbelief of the announcers' voices, the insane cheering of the crowd, holding his attention like few things could.

I found the last ten minutes of the game on YouTube. By now, Ethan and I both knew every steal, every basket, every deflection, every syllable of the announcers' breathless narrative. Over the years this game had fused to our consciousness, and we never tired of seeing it one more time.

“There's Deron—watch him now,” I said. “He's going to hit the three.”

When Illinois's star guard, Deron Williams, sidestepped a defender at the top of the key and drained his game-tying shot, a shot that had filled me with the purest form of joy, a shot that reaffirmed my optimistic outlook on life, a shot that helped me get to sleep more nights than I cared to admit, Ethan pounded the bed with his fist and screamed, “Three!”

“Three!” I yelled.

“Go. Illini!”

“Yes, go, Illini!”

We watched the game to its amazing conclusion and slapped each other five several times. The game, the shot, had once again served its purpose, washing me clean of all worry, albeit just for a while.

I gave Ethan a glass of water and watched him drink. He looked relaxed and happy, his eyes shimmering—Ethan at ease. Seeing him so content, I thought the time might be right to share something else with him.

“Hey, I want to show you some pictures. Come on, sit down.”

I returned to the laptop and found the Ocean View Web site. While I had mentioned the home to him in passing a handful of times, I had not made a concerted effort to discuss it, or his future, in any detail. Since I was never exactly sure what he was grasping, I didn't want to unnecessarily raise his anxiety. I did know that it was best to tell him about upcoming plans with as little advance notice as possible. I thought this might be a good time to start preparing him; we were just days away.

“Here's where we're going,” I said, pointing to a picture of Ocean View. It showed a stately, redbrick building with black shutters and a long porch dotted with white wicker rocking chairs. I touched a photo of one of the chairs with my finger. “You can rock back and forth on those chairs. And you can see the ocean from there too. Very pretty.”

Ethan stared at the picture.

I swallowed. “You're going to stay there. Live there. Maybe.”

Next I showed him the spacious gym with hardwood floors and six different baskets. The gym was a key factor in my decision, a selling point.

“You can shoot hoops there,” I said. “They just built it.”

“How. Many. Me. Make?”

“Fifty.”

“How. Many. Dad. Make?”

“Twelve. You win.” I paused. “But you'll be playing with other people too.”

“Go. Illini!”

“Right.” I clicked on the link for the swimming pool. “You can go swimming every day there. It's warm. Heated. You can do that after you play hoops. Hold on to the sides, though. Be careful.”

“Yes. Ma'am.”

Since he still seemed interested, I moved on to a photo of a bedroom. It was nondescript, with a twin bed, dresser, classroom-style desk, and a small TV. A vase of flowers was perched on the dresser, a burst of yellow-and-purple colors that made the rest of the room seem stark by comparison.

“This isn't a very good picture. The rooms are nicer,” I said. “They're very comfortable and sunny, and you have two windows that overlook the back where there're hoops and places to play catch every day and run and take walks. And they have cable, of course, so you can watch
SportsCenter
and some Illini basketball games.”

“Go. Illini!”

“Right. And there's a computer room where we can Skype you every day. Every day we can talk and see you on a computer. I'm going to call you every day, see you every day. Every day that you're gone. Every day.”

I quickly shut the computer, cleared my throat, and stared straight ahead at the blank TV. We would be there soon. In a few days we would be there. I let this sink in. Then I reached over and grabbed Ethan and hugged him as hard as I could.

“Why. Mad?” he asked. “Why. Mad?”

*   *   *

The next morning we found Mary sitting alone in the lobby, her head hunched over her phone.

I pulled out a chair for Ethan. “Good morning.”

“She didn't come home last night.”

“Who? Karen?”

“She didn't come home. I was up all night. Finally I went looking for her.”

“You drove around last night?”

“Yes. It's not a very big town. I thought I'd see the van, but I didn't.”

“Eat. Starving. Eat. Now!”