“I never thought of myself as particularly lucky,” Al said. “I do now.”
“I know what you mean. Listen, I gotta get out of here by six at the latest. Laine’s dad is in town and she’s going to take him back to Boston in a couple of days. He’s showing some signs of...well, getting old and fragile. She doesn’t want him flying alone. And she wants to make sure he gets some checkups once he’s home, so she’s going to take care of that. She’ll be gone awhile.”
“I thought Laine’s father was a doctor,” Al said.
“Apparently they make terrible patients and aren’t too good at taking care of their health. Who knew?”
“No problem, Eric. I’ll be here. Take off earlier. I can manage the station, you know that.”
Eric slapped a hand on his back. “I rely on you a lot, Al. And I appreciate it. I hope you know that.”
Al grinned. “That mean there’s a little something in the Christmas card for me?”
Eric laughed. “Christmas is a long time from now. Let’s see where you are then.”
“Yeah, boss.” He got a kick out of calling this kid “boss.” He wondered if Eric ever thought about that. He could actually have been Al’s son, being eighteen years younger.
It was about four in the afternoon when Ray Anne stopped by for her quarter tank of gas. She was wearing a hot-pink skirt and jacket, Ray Anne’s version of the business suit. And those heels that brought her up to five-foot-seven, when she was really struggling to make five-three. There was a lot of leg, a little cleavage and a great big smile for Al. He liked that; he thought her sexy clothes were cute.
“How’s it going today?” she asked, laying a hand full of hot-pink enamel fingernails on his forearm.
“Better now,” he said, making her eyes sparkle. “I can’t get away early tonight. Eric’s got family business and I have to close the shop and take the calls for tows. There might not be any, that’s my hope. So I can’t get out of here till eleven, but if you’re feeling young and energetic and maybe can sleep in late tomorrow, we could spend a little time on the roof.”
“I can do that,” she said.
“Don’t let me talk you into anything,” he said. “You don’t have to stay dressed up. You can put on your pajamas and lotions—I like you that way, too. Fact is, I like you all ways.”
“Something wrong with these shoes?” she asked, turning an ankle to reveal the heels.
“I think they’re hot,” he said. “You can wear ’em with your pajamas if you want, but it’s not necessary. You keep my attention just fine in bare feet with cotton between your toes.”
“I’ll be up,” she said. “I’ll have a cold beer for you and a glass of wine for myself. I can’t order up a lightning show, but the stars are nice up there on the roof.”
“I’ll see you later,” he said. And he felt better than he had in hours.
* * *
When Al got to Ray Anne’s house she was not in her pajamas but she was dressed casually. She’d managed to get the beanbags up on the roof along with a throw and a couple of candles. They took their drinks and got settled in and all the while Al was thinking, This woman is so sweet to me. She will be so hard to leave.
“Things are kind of upside down around here,” he said. She was snuggled up close to him and just hummed. “There’s the situation with Justin and his brothers—that has his friends from work worried. The kid should catch a break. And Eric said Laine’s pretty worried about her father. She’s going to take him back to Boston, hopefully not gone too long.”
“Tell me more about Justin and his brothers,” she said.
He told her the full story, starting with the day Eric asked him to look out for Justin up to that fateful day the ambulance took his mother away.
“The poor kid,” she said. “I can’t imagine. I never had younger siblings or children of my own.”
“Did you want them? Children?”
“I did when I was younger. But I wasn’t married to men who wanted them so it couldn’t have been a priority. Right?”
“Do you regret it?” he asked.
“Al, I have a pile of regrets,” she said with a laugh. “But I also have a nice big stack of good moments, happy times when I actually mysteriously made good choices for myself. And I’m happy now. That’s enough for me.”
“That’s a good place to be,” he said.
“You’re one of my better choices.”
“Ray, you’re one sweet little honey. That’s for sure.”
“Aw, I like hearing that.”
“You’re awful good to me.”
“That’s the easy part. It’s easy to be good to a good man.”
“You know, there was a time, when I was a young farmer, that I thought the idea of a bunch of kids was exactly what I was cut out for. Life on the farm with a family was all I ever wanted.”
“You must have changed your mind,” she said.
“My mind got changed, yeah. I married real young. We lived on the farm. She got pregnant right away and even though farming is hard, we couldn’t have been happier. We had a baby, a boy, and he died of crib death.”
“Aw, Al, I’m so sorry.”
“Back then I was Mick, short for Michel. When I couldn’t come to grips with the loss, I took a job driving a truck and was almost never home. My wife complained about it, but she had a lot of family and I didn’t think she needed me too much.” He chuckled deep in his throat and pulled Ray Anne a little closer. “In case you ever get the notion it’s a good idea to run away from your troubles, I tried that one—it doesn’t work too well. When I was finally healed enough to put my roots back down, it was too late. Carol figured out she couldn’t count on me and life was hard enough for her. That was pretty much the end of that.”
Ray Anne was quiet for a moment. “Very sad for both of you.”
“Carol did the right thing. A few years later she married a local guy—Tony. They had a couple of kids. They do a little farming but Tony is also an insurance agent and Carol is a nurse in a nursing home. You know that half a farm that was left to me? I didn’t take the money and run—I gave my half to Carol. She earned it. I go back there every summer and I see her. She’s doing well.”
“You still love her?” Ray Anne asked.
“Oh, sure, but it’s not the kind of love you think. It’s friendship. Her kids treat me like some oddball old uncle that shows up sometimes. I give her a lot of credit, you know? She was never angry with me. She was finished, but she wasn’t mad. She just moved on. Got her nursing degree, got married, had a family...the things that were important.”
“And what about you? Did you get to do the things that are important to you?” she asked him.
“Well, this—right now, right here—this is important. It’s one of those things that might be a blessing or could be a handicap. It just doesn’t take that much to make me happy. A night under the stars with my girl, that’s heaven to me.”
“Yet you still run....”
“I still have a phobia about getting pinned down....”
“And a fear of being disappointed?” she asked.
“No, honey. Fear of being a disappointment.”
She snuggled closer. “You’re not a kid anymore, Al. You’re a good man. Stop worrying you can’t live up to expectations and just do what you know is right for you. No one’s going to try to pin you down or turn you into something you don’t aim to be. You’re not that scared and confused young farmer anymore.”
“And if I get a hankering to go off again?”
“Say goodbye,” she said. “Just say, see you later. But you don’t have to run away. You’re welcome here as long as you feel like staying.”
“I’ll admit, Ray—it’s real hard to think of leaving you.”
She smiled. “Good,” she said.
Seventeen
When Eric got home at five o’clock—early for him—three suitcases were packed and lined up inside the front door. There was the rich aroma of his favorite—steak soup. He knew she made it for him despite the fact that it wasn’t a soup day—it was sunny and bright outside, the temperature warm. He went to the kitchen, where he found Senior at the table, the newspaper spread out in front of him. Laine was stirring a pot and he went behind her. Hands around her waist, he kissed her neck and she hummed.
Her father grunted.
“Hello, Paxton,” Eric said. “How was your day?”
“Very busy,” he said.
“We didn’t do a thing,” Laine said softly. “We walked down to the diner for lunch. When Gina brought lunch Senior said he’d just eaten.” She shook her head. “Then we walked along the beach, stopped in at Cooper’s and on the way home we said goodbye at the doctor’s office and sheriff’s office. I did the rest of the packing while Dad napped.”
Over the past few days Laine told him she had seen firsthand how much her father’s dementia was taking over. Mornings were best for him but his periods of confusion were longer and more frequent than she realized and by evening he was a mess of forgetfulness. It was a miracle he’d gotten himself to Oregon all the way from Boston and a triple miracle he’d managed the drive from Portland. If she hadn’t seen his ticket for herself she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the journey had taken days.
But typical of Alzheimer’s patients, his memory of things that happened long ago, in his childhood, adolescence or early adulthood was crystal clear to the finest detail.
“I can still go with you,” Eric said. “Al and Manny can manage the station. It would be a quick trip for me, but I can help you get him there.”
“We’ll be okay,” she said. “We’ve been inseparable for days. He does whatever I ask of him, even if he does sometimes think I’m my mother. And Scott Grant gave me a mild sedative in case he gets agitated while we’re traveling. I don’t think we’ll need it.”
He sniffed the air. “Steak soup—my favorite.”
“There will be enough left over for you to freeze. I even got a couple of extra sourdough bowls and put them in the freezer.”
“Maybe you could slip him a sedative tonight,” he suggested.
She smiled at him. “He’s been resting very well. We haven’t had nighttime issues. At least not yet. You’re taking this very well.”
He wasn’t, actually. He was terrified that the needs of her family would take her away from him. This dynamic was pretty complicated—after a lifetime of conflict with her father she suddenly learns the old boy adores her. And of course she’d always adored him and longed for his approval. And now Senior needed her. It wasn’t an illusion, he really needed her. Laine wasn’t working full-time at the moment and Pax was committed to a difficult and time-consuming fellowship—there weren’t many options. “I’m going to miss you like mad, but I understand you have to do this.”
“You will stay here, won’t you? In our house?”
“Is that what you want?” he asked for the tenth time.
“I want to see you in my mind when I talk to you. I don’t want to think of you in some hotel room or something. I want to envision you in your station or here, on the deck or in the kitchen.” She frowned a little. “No dirty boots on my sofa.”
“Never,” he said, smiling at her.
“When you tell me about the lightning over the bay, I want to see it in my mind and wish I was with you on the deck or in bed. I don’t want...”