Silent Whisper (26 page)

When Mom returned home I filled her in.

“Oh my God, he’s coming here?” she asked, her eyes widening.

“No, I didn’t tell him where you lived. I wanted to see how you felt about that before I did.”

“Well I sure as hell am not going to let him visit you one-on-one,” she declared.

“Mom, I’m his freakin’ daughter. Why would he want me snuffed?”

And then she totally started laughing. For a second there, I was worried that she might not stop, in which case she’d be getting a lift to the mental ward from me.

“I’m sorry,” she said, snorting the way she always did when she laughed really hard, which as I recalled, wasn’t that often anymore. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in this time warp. Like its 1986 or 1987 again, you know?”

Yeah. I kinda do.

“How about just for shits and giggles we meet in a neutral place for this first meeting? I want him to know that I did right by Karlie in raising you, sweetie. If he has any issues with that, well then he can say it to my face,” she said.

“Sounds like a plan, Mom.”

Mom and I were sitting at a corner table at a nearby O’ Charley’s on a Thursday afternoon when she nodded towards the front of the restaurant. “That’s him,” she said, with plain recognition in her voice, “I’d know him anywhere even after all of these years.”

I turned to look in that direction and saw a tall, dark-haired man with a quick stride coming towards us. We had informed the hostess that a man in his late-fifties would be asking for us.

Oh. My. God.

My dad was…
hot.

And I know that’s a totally inappropriate thing for a daughter to think, but well, I had expected a bent-over, gnarled-with-age kind of dude, I mean after all? He was ten years older than
both
of my mothers. But this guy? He was tall, built like he still hit the gym every couple of days, and as he got closer, I could see that his hair was graying at the temples, which just kind of made him look even more sophisticated and worldly.

“Parrish?” he said, coming closer.

“Uh…yeah, I mean yes,” I said, scooting my chair back so that I could stand up. I extended my arm for a handshake, but he quickly brushed it aside, and pulled me against him gently for an embrace. His strong arms encircled me and it felt so safe and so right for some reason. And that’s when the levee broke.

His hands were patting my back soothingly as sobs racked my body.

Where the hell did that come from?

“I’m sorry,” I sputtered, pulling back. “I don’t know what the hell got into me.”

“Are you okay, Parrish?” my mother asked, a look of concern plastered on her face.

“I’m good,” I assured her, taking the linen handkerchief my father offered me, and dabbing at my eyes. “This is so not like me,” I said.

“It’s an emotional time for me as well,” he assured me, holding my chair out for me so that I could sit down again.

He took his place next to me, immediately glancing over at Mom.

“I apologize for staring, but you look a bit familiar.”

“My name is Jean Locke,” she said, holding out her hand for him to shake. I was an old friend of Karlie’s.”

Mom had used her middle name of ‘Jean’ since I was born and her name was put on my birth certificate as ‘L. Jean Locke.’

“That’s right,” he said, shaking his head. “Now I remember where we met, although I didn’t know you were that close to…Karlie.”

She shrugged; getting some of her cockiness back which I suspected had been absent for some time. “Lots of things you didn’t know…Nick.”

I saw him shift uncomfortably in his seat. The server came over just then placing glasses of water in front of each of us and then proceeded to take our lunch orders. I noticed my father was wearing a gold wedding band as he handed his menu back to the server.

“So,” I said, “How did you and my birth mother meet?”

He had just taken a sip of water when that question landed on his ears. I thought for a moment, he was going to choke, but he quickly composed himself, turning to face me. I could see Mom squirming in her chair compliments of my peripheral vision. I totally wasn’t trying to be a shit—not with
her
anyway.

“We met through a mutual acquaintance,” he replied. “I conducted business in the area, so I visited West Virginia periodically. She caught my eye immediately.”

“I want to hear all about it,” I continued, smiling, taking a swig of my ice water.

“You remind me of her.”

“Really? That’s strange. Your ex-wife thinks I’m a female clone of you—in your
younger
days of course. But I want to hear all about—”

My mother cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Parrish, I’ll leave you and your father alone to talk. I’m going to wait outside in the car. Just have them box up my lunch to go.”

“Are you sure?” Nick asked, standing up, acting almost as if he wanted her to stay—maybe to referee?

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, slipping her coat on. “It’s best if you two hash this out alone.” She shot out of there like a rocket. And truthfully, I didn’t know why I had suddenly turned into such a shit with him.

I was bothered.

Pure and simple.

He sat back down, placing his folded hands on the table. “Is there something in particular you’d like to ask me?”

“When did you re-marry?” I asked, glancing down at his wedding band.

“About five years ago,” he replied.

“Children?”

“No. Only you.”

“I thought you told my mother that you would love her forever? Did forever
end
five years ago?”

He was studying me carefully now. He was probably trying to figure out how I could possibly have known that. He didn’t know the half of what I knew.

“Parrish, I loved your mother like no one else. She was my angel, my Karlie. But
she
left
me
; I would’ve never left her.”

“Then why didn’t you try and
find
her?”

“I did,” he replied, a look of sadness overwhelmed his handsome features. “When it was safe, I did my best to try and find her, believe me, I did.”

“What do you mean by safe?”

He ran a hand through his still thick hair, resting his face on his palm. “I don’t know how much you’ve been told about my family or the business we were in—”

“The mob—yeah, I know all about
that
part of it, including you testifying against them in exchange for immunity; the witness protection program that you left—I’m clear on all that. But I’m not clear on why you stopped searching for my mother.”

“The day she left I was out of state. I learned at the same time that my family had ordered a hit on her. I was frantic to find her before they did. When I realized that she had fled prior to the contract being established, I knew that she had left for reasons of her own. All I cared about at the moment was her safety.”

“Bullshit,” I said, “All you cared about was saving your own ass from going down.”

“Oh, you think you have it all figured out, don’t you? Well sweetheart, you aren’t even close.” His voice had a steely edge to it that momentarily served to make me back off a bit.

Our food arrived, and for several minutes we ate in silence. I hadn’t planned on being so combative with him. I mean all things considered, he was still my father. He was blood.

“Look,” he finally said. “It all makes sense to me now. She was pregnant with you, she sensed the family was in turmoil and she didn’t want a child of ours being brought into that kind of a life.”

“And you would’ve?”

“Absolutely not,” he said. I then saw a wry smile tease his lips. “You know, I don’t know how many times I
pleaded
with Karlie to trust me, to believe in me, and to know that I would never let anything come between us. If I’d known she was pregnant, it would’ve changed
everything
. I would never have allowed our child—you,” he said, “to have been brought up the way that I had. But Karlie,” he sighed, “no matter how many times I told her this, she just never truly believed it.”

I felt compassion for him at that moment, but I still wasn’t quite ready to let him off the hook.

“You seemed to have gotten on in your life okay,” I commented. “You divorced—even though you always said you wouldn’t.”

He looked up abruptly when I said that.

“Anna divorced me, but our marriage was a farce. Old family rules that were ludicrous when you consider the other activities that were sanctioned.” He shook his head at the absurdity of it all.

I tossed my linen napkin on top of the table. “You know, I’m sorry,
Pops
,” I said, “But you don’t get my sympathy in any of this. As much as I want a father—need a father even at my age, I can’t abide the fact that you’re the reason I lost my mother. You haven’t even asked how she died.”

“I know how she died. It was an automobile accident and there was no mention of a child. How was this my fault?”

“Because she was on her way to visit
you
in some…some federal detention center where you were being held in protective custody. She knew all about what was happening with you. She saw it on the news. May 29, 1987 - does FCI Gilmer in Glenville, West Virginia ring a bell? Cause that’s where she was headed. To see
you
, and to tell you about
me
.”

“I was never there,” he whispered. “I was in protective custody, but it was in upstate New York,
never
in West Virginia.”

Rewind - what??

“Fucking Walter,” I hissed.

“What?”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. The point is that she
thought
she was on her way to see you, and that’s when the accident occurred.”

“I never knew,” he said softly.

“Well now you know,” I said. “And it’s a shame that she’s put her spiritual life on hold for all of these years, thinking that you didn’t know that she was dead, and wanting you to know the facts so that she could get to her final destination.”

“What?”

“Forget it. It’s complicated and you probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

“Try me.”

I looked at him, I mean
really
looked at him and I saw someone that was still tortured by the memory of Karlie Masterson. My words and my attitude had sparked that and was it really fair?

No. It wasn’t.

And it wasn’t fair that I had to be the one to return to Chester and deliver the news to Ma. And then I realized something else: these two beings still loved one another, and as ludicrous as that sounds—being that one of them was dead—they still needed their HEA (Happily Ever After). They deserved one and maybe, just maybe, I could help them get there.

“Would you mind making a trip to Chester with me? I want to take you to her grave.”

“When?”

“How about tomorrow?”

“I’ve got a rental, shall I pick you up?”

And so it was decided that my father and I would make that trip alone to Chester, and fingers were crossed that I could pull this off.

The several hour car ride from Richmond to Chester went smoother than I had anticipated with my father. I wasn’t sure how I should address him, so in my usual blunt fashion, I simply asked him when I got into the car the following morning.

“Look,” I said, “Would you prefer that I call you ‘Nick’, or ‘Father’ or Dad?” I asked. “There won’t be any ‘Daddy’, though,” I added.

He looked over at me and gave me a genuine, from-the-gut smile. “Anything but ‘Pops’ is fine by me, daughter.”

And he was ingratiated…for the moment.

“Okay, then how about ‘Dad’?”

“It’s fine. I love it,” he replied.

So, we made general conversation on the ride to West Virginia. Nothing heavy, nothing deep or emotional.

I told him about my modeling career and he was gracious enough to say that it didn’t surprise him what with how strikingly beautiful I was.

“Yeah, you’re just saying that because I look like
you,
” I teased.

“Parrish - you
are
a handful,” he said with another grin. “You may resemble me a bit, but you are totally Karlie. It does my heart good to see that.”

And then it got quiet, and I had a serious question that I needed to ask him. “What was the trait in her that you liked the best?” I asked.

He was thoughtful for a moment, and then answered very quietly. “I loved her spirit,” he said, “And I loved her talent, because she had a very unique talent for design. Your mother was someone that you would’ve admired had you known her. She was strong, she was driven, and she wasn’t one that wanted to be pampered or spoiled, though I admit, I spoiled her as often as I could. Karlie wanted to be productive and to earn her way in this world. She spoke her mind, and could be stubborn at times, but it wasn’t out of defiance, it was out of necessity - if that makes sense.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “It kind of does make sense. I’m sort’ve the same way I guess.”

“See? I told you bambolina. You are very much like her in those respects. Karlie also had a heart like no other. She loved me with an intensity that I’d never felt before, and that I never will again.”

“What about your wife?” I blurted out. “Do you love her? Does she love you?”

“It’s different. And maybe that comes with age and with living through…things. The woman that I married five years ago, Sheila, is a widow. We met on line. I was so terribly lonely, as was she. We are compatible, but to say that we are head-over-heels madly and passionately in love with one another, well it would be a lie. She still mourns her husband who passed - he was the love of her life, and I still mourn my Karlie who was the love of my life. We both understand that. We are comfortable with one another, and we have a good life. I care for her just as she cares for me. But there are no ‘fireworks’ as they say. I’m fifty-nine years old and she is sixty-two. We are the best of friends and companions but not much else.”

“Does she know about me? Does she know why you’re here?”