Deep Down True (36 page)

“No way!”

She sniffed toward his feet. “Rotten eggs. Forget the bath—you’re going straight into the washing machine!”

They straggled up the two flights of stairs to the bathroom on the second floor, and she ran a bubble bath. When he got in, she collected his clothes to put in the hamper. The pants had something round and hard in them, and when she reached into the pocket, she pulled out a golf ball. Written in black marker across the tiny dimples were the words “You rock, Dude!”

“Where’d this come from?” she asked him.

“That’s mine!”

“I’m not taking it,” she assured him. “I just asked where you got it.”

He sank under the bubbles until only a thatch of his hair was visible. Dana waited. When he surfaced, he seemed surprised she was still there. “Dad said I could keep it,” he grumbled.

“Dad gave this to you?”

“Yeah.” Grady let out a resigned huff, as if he’d been caught with contraband. “We call each other ‘dude’ sometimes. Dad said I could carry it around when I miss him. Okay? So don’t lose it.”

She looked at him there in the tub, soap bubbles clinging to his hair, and he seemed so small. With most of his body underwater, he looked much as he had when he was two or three.

“I’ll put it on your dresser so you’ll know where to find it.” And she left him there bobbing a plastic shark in and out of the suds. She pulled a sock out of his drawer to set the golf ball on so it wouldn’t roll onto the floor.

She remembered finding a shirt of her father’s in the back of her mother’s closet years after he was gone. Her mother had shrugged. “I still loved him,” she said. “Even after what he did.” When she died, Dana and Connie cleared out her apartment and Dana looked for the shirt, half afraid to find it. But it wasn’t there. Their mother was a purposeful person; she wouldn’t have thrown it out by accident. Dana remembered thinking,
She must have been ready to let it go.

Clearly, Grady wasn’t ready to let anything go, nor fully accept his father’s reduced presence in his life. And it occurred to her that the desperation Grady felt might also be shared by Kenneth himself. How must Kenneth have felt searching for something to soothe his sad little boy and then writing these words to remind him of their private joke? How does it feel to hand your child an inanimate object and say, “Pretend this is me”?

Dana had never had to do such a thing, and she hoped she never would. But standing there looking at the golf ball, she had a moment of sympathy for Kenneth.

Later, when Grady had put on his pajamas and gotten into bed, she came back in to say good night to him. The golf ball was not on the dresser, and she knew without a doubt that it was with him, possibly under the pillow or more likely held tightly in the safe harbor of his hand.

“
G
OSH, THAT WAS NICE OF YOU,” SHE SAID TO TONY as he unlocked the big glass door on Monday morning. “Calling to offer me some time off.”

“Yeah?” he said, an uncharacteristic note of uncertainty in his tone. “After I hung up, I was worried you’d think it was over the top, calling you on the weekend like that. But I figured you’d need some time to figure out the logistics. Otherwise I could’ve just told you when you came in this morning . . .” He trailed off.

“Not at all,” she assured him. “In fact, after the other messages I got, it was like when you open the mail and you think it’s going to be a bill and it ends up being a check instead.”

“Good,” he said with a little sigh of relief, as they hung their coats in the closet. Tony unwound the scarf from his neck and tugged on the fringe. “So . . . you think you’ll do it?”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” she said with a chuckle. “But I
like
being here. This is the easy part. What I really need is a break from everything
else.
”

He smiled back at her. “All right. Well, the offer stands.”

She reached out and gave his arm a pat. “You are the best boss, Tony. Honestly, no one could ask for better.”

At lunch she told him about the golf ball, and he nodded knowingly. “Ingrid picked out things for the girls,” he said. “When she went to the hospital all those times, and then at the end . . .”

“Oh, Tony,” Dana murmured.

“Yeah, heartbreaking.” He shook his head. “She tried to do the same for me, and I got so mad.”

“Mad? Why?”

“Because I’m not a child, for godsake. I know the difference between a lifeless object and my wife! Besides, the whole world reminded me of her. Everything was a symbol of what I’d lost.”

“Is it still that way?”

He thought for a moment. “Yes and no. I’ve had experiences since then, taken trips, made new friends. It’s not all about her anymore, which is a good thing, I think. A healthy thing. I mean, how the hell could I have gone on like that? I’d be in the loony bin by now. But I look at my beautiful girls . . . and there she is.” He sighed. “There she is, and right where she should be.”

He looked back up at her, the warm brown of his eyes calling her into his loss, his survival, and she felt a surge of pride that he would share it with her. She found herself reaching out and giving his hand a squeeze. His face changed, a fleeting reaction—surprise, she thought. Or maybe panic? She was his employee, after all. She shouldn’t be holding his hand across the chipped tabletop as if this were a lunch date at some Parisian café. She slid her hand back and made an excuse about needing to make some phone calls before her lunch break was over.

Actually, she did need to make another appointment for Morgan. She left a message on Bethany Sweet’s voice mail. She called Connie and left a message about Alder’s car. There were still ten minutes left—who else could she call?

“Hi, Jack, it’s Dana.”

“Ohhh,”
he said, his voice rising and falling like a taunt. “You finally had time to call back.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that the kids have had some . . . trouble. I hope you understand.”

He let out a little grunt of appeasement. “I suppose,” he conceded. “I’m not the kind of guy to get in the way of a mom and her kids. I just didn’t think you’d forget about, you know . . .
us.
”

“No, I didn’t forget. But you have to understand they’re my priority. Also, I know you meant well, but you can’t show up at my office like that. It makes me look unprofessional.”
Especially when you’re disrespectful to my boss,
she thought.

“Well,
that
guy, he’s on some sort of power trip,” insisted Jack. “He couldn’t let you off for
one hour
? I mean, come on! Who does he think you are—his slave?”

A fury came over Dana so fast she felt as if she could hit something. “That’s a horrible thing to say, and it couldn’t be further from the truth,” she said tightly. “Tony Sakimoto is one of the kindest, most understanding guys in the world.”

“Well,
excuse me
! I didn’t know he was the Second Coming, or I would’ve knelt and kissed his ring!”

Dana narrowed her eyes at the phone. “You know what?” she said. “I’m not talking to you anymore!”

“Well, neither am I!” he yelled, and the phone went dead.

There’s another friend I’ve lost,
she told herself. But she couldn’t seem to feel bad about it. In fact, she realized with surprise, what she felt most was relief.

 

 

The sight of the first patient to come in after lunch nearly knocked her out of her chair.

“Hey, Good Witch!” he teased, leaning on the counter. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Dermott! Is . . . is everything okay?” She had this strange notion that maybe something had happened to Mary Ellen or one of the children. But why would he come here? And tell her?

“Everything but my dental hygiene, apparently.” She stared at him. He stared back, perplexed. “Did my appointment get canceled? Mellie made such a big deal about dropping me off on time.”

She looked down at the day’s schedule. There was his name. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I just didn’t know you were a patient here.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I really wasn’t planning on coming, but Mellie insisted.”

“Why weren’t you going to come?”

“Well”—he smiled at her—“you know.” She hadn’t a clue, and it must have showed, because he added, “It’s kind of like getting your car washed before you junk it.”

His eyes locked onto hers for a moment in that way he had, and she felt herself blanch. “Jeez,” he muttered, “I’m always doing this to you.”

And then Tony was there in the doorway, saying, “Dermott, how goes it?”

“Shitty,” said Dermott. “And whatever you do, don’t ask me about changes in my health status.”

“Deal.” Tony clasped a hand on Dermott’s shoulder, and they went into the operatory.

When he came back out, Dermott showed her his teeth. “You practically need sunglasses, don’t you?”

“Marie’s the best,” said Dana nodding.
What a beautiful face,
she thought. Gaunt and pale as he was, Dermott’s humor and kindness still shone through. “I need to ask you,” she said hesitantly. “It’s a standard question.”

“Next appointment?” He considered for a moment. “No. I wouldn’t want one of those reminder cards going out. I’m trying to make it easy on her. Well, as easy as I can anyway.”

“I’m glad you came today,” Dana ventured. “It sounds like it means a lot to her.”

“She’s not ready.” He stared into space for a brief moment, then focused on Dana again. “Thanks for everything, Good Witch. My chauffeur should be here any minute.” And he walked gingerly out the door.

Bethany Sweet called back while Dana was helping Grady with his homework. The slightly epileptic strains of Morgan’s cello practice drifted down from her room. Dana left Grady with his double-digit addition problems and went into the office. They set the next appointment, and she told Bethany about the Disney trip. “I just don’t think this is the right time,” Dana concluded. “Morgan needs stability, and I don’t want her to miss a weekly appointment with you.”

“I see your point,” said Bethany. “And it’s important for Morgan not to feel she’s being forced to go if she doesn’t want to. So many things feel out of her control right now—I wouldn’t want to add to that pile. However . . .” There was a little pause, and Dana could feel her neck muscles tighten. “It could be a very good thing for her.”

No!
thought Dana, but what she said was, “Why?”

“First of all, because she’s missing her dad. Kids this age often don’t express it—sometimes they don’t even know it themselves. But I got a little clue when she said her favorite activity is cello, even though she doesn’t think she’s very good. Why would she enjoy it? But then she said it reminds her of a man’s voice. So we chatted about that, and in fact she does miss her father very much.”

“Also, school is pretty tough right now,” Bethany continued. “They love a good drama at this age, and unfortunately The Morgan Show seems to be the main attraction. They’ll get bored of it soon enough, or something else will come along. But until then, it’s hard. Knowing that she only has to make it through one more week before going on a fun trip could be a real lifeline for her.”

Of course it would,
thought Dana with growing despair.
This is exactly what she needs.

“I hadn’t thought of it quite like that,” she said quietly. “And it won’t be a problem to have her miss an appointment? I thought consistency was so important in therapy.”

“It’s really about how it feels for Morgan. Missing one appointment is a small price to pay for a week of relief.” Bethany let out a little bird-size cough. “It must be hard to think about having her gone for Thanksgiving. Morgan says the two of you are close.”

“I just want what’s best for Morgan,” said Dana, hearing the dullness in her voice.

“Good parents always do.”

 

 

“I thought you were done with your wolf paper,” said Dana. By nine o’clock it had already been dark for so long that it felt like the middle of the night. She was surprised to find Morgan still fully dressed and sitting at her desk writing in a notebook.

“I am,” she said. “This isn’t schoolwork. It’s, um . . . it’s an assignment. From Bethany. I’m supposed to write about my life and stuff.”

An assignment,
thought Dana, impressed once again with Bethany’s powers of observation. If she had simply suggested Morgan keep a journal, it probably wouldn’t have worked. But an assignment—it was like a balm for Morgan.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, you’ll have to work on it tomorrow, because it’s time for bed.”

Morgan groaned and put the notebook away. She grabbed her pajamas from the end of her bed and began to change. Dana picked up an abandoned shirt from the floor and hung it in the closet. When she turned back, Morgan’s pajama top was still hiked up above her shoulder blades. Dana marveled at the smoothness of her skin and the straightness of her back, like the stem of a flower about to bud. Morgan tugged down the pajama top and nestled into her mess of covers.