CHAPTER EIGHT
Dad had it in his will that he wanted to be cremated, which is fine with me. The state I’m in, I couldn’t have planned any kind of a funeral. Fortunately, I have vacation time saved up from work, so a surprisingly understanding Derek grants me permission to take the next month off. A whole week goes by before I can bring myself to even set foot in Dad’s room. I’m relieved to see the EMTs took the time to clean up the mess he’d left on the floor. The Salvation Army pickup service saves me the effort and stress of taking his clothes to their delivery center, and I donate his books to the library, except the LBJ biography. After all, his bookmark’s only on page 255. He didn’t get to finish that one.
Over the next few weeks, a steady stream of well-wishers drop by, all of them making sure their visit, “just to see how you’re getting on,” doesn’t pass without them hitting me up for some keepsake from Dad’s worldly goods. Personal knick-knacks, his dog tags, antique coins, even the old ashtray he saved from the Florida hotel where my mom and him stayed on their honeymoon: I let them all go, doing my best not sob openly, my heart on my sleeve.
The relatives are the worst, cousins and nephews and my Uncle Jay, all pressing me with incessant questions about whether or not I’m going to sell the house.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” they all say. “Now that he’s gone, you in a big family home like this by yourself. Single girl and all….” I know they’re not trying to rub any salt in the wounds. But the words do sting.
After my explosion in the hospital, Kyle calls me almost every hour at first, hoping to share his sympathies, or beg me to take him back, or try to con me into sleeping with him again. I really don’t know. I never pick up. I never read his texts or emails either, and as the days go by, the outreach diminishes, until by the third week, I’m not hearing from him at all. He must have finally gotten tired of the hassle, moved on to whoever his next victim’s going to be. I remember his words to me that night on the yacht: If I want to sleep with someone, I can do that any night of the week. And in the past, I have. And in the future, I assume, he still will. So congratulations to you, sir, I guess. Congratulations on a life where absolutely everything you want goes your way.
That third week is also when I’m visited by Mitch Brunner, the head of the local union. It turns out, without even telling me, they’d taken up a collection the day after Ralph passed, to pay for a memorial service they’re holding in a week’s time.
“Nothing fancy, mind you,” Mitch says. “Just a couple sandwich platters, some of the guys maybe saying a few words. But I know you didn’t get to do a real funeral for him, so we just thought, this is our chance to give the man some kind of sendoff.”
I honestly didn’t think I had any more tears left. Mitch proves me wrong, and I send him on his way with a hug and a lump in my throat.
I don’t give a thought to the idea of breaking that promise until the night before the memorial, when I finally gather the courage to take down Dad’s old bedclothes. As I’m pulling the fitted sheets from the mattress, something clunks to the floor. Looking down, I immediately drop to my knees.
It’s the iPad. The one I gave him for Valentine’s Day. The one he used to conjure Kyle into our lives.
With trembling fingers, I pick the electrical device up off the carpet. Naturally, the power’s dead. It’s been running for a month now with no one to recharge it, to give it new life.
I plug it in, and as the screen fires up, I see the windows Dad left open when he died. A YouTube page, with an episode of Banacek someone had uploaded. Solitaire, of course. And then one file, minimized at the bottom of the screen. I open it, and my breath catches in my throat.
It’s a selfie of Kyle and I on a bridge at the canals in Venice Beach. We took it one afternoon when we went for a stroll there, about four days before our night at Perch. Four days before we had sex for the first time. Four days before I saw my dad for the last time. I remember standing on that bridge with Kyle, watching ducks glide by below us, and Kyle telling me about how he’d seriously considered making an offer on one of the houses along these placid waterways. When I asked him why he decided not to, he said, “Because if I lived here, I’d get to see this beauty every day, and feel this quiet. And then it wouldn’t feel special anymore.”
That was the moment I had realized I was in love with him.
Six days later, he was gone from my life. They both were.
And again, there was only the grey loneliness descending onto my soul, making it impossible to breathe.
* * * * *
As I sit in my Civic, watching white-haired men and their pearl-wearing wives file into the union hall, I think about the last months my dad and I had together. Ralph Endicott was never one to let even something as dire as terminal cancer get him down, but even so, those last few weeks were different. The extra pep in his demeanor. How was almost always awake, waiting for me, when I brought in his breakfast. The way, on his best days, his smile would spread, as he talked about the stuff he looked forward to doing again, after the surgery “put the hitch back in my giddy-up.”
I think about the joy he was able to experience, even as the cancer ate away at him. The renewed sense of purpose. The humanity he felt again.
That was all thanks to Kyle.
His promise to my dad, his sacrifice, gave a dying man something not enough people get near the end: The belief that everything’s going to be okay. My dad went to his grave holding out hope. For a new life for him, and a happy one for his Sarahbelle.
Slowly, I take out my phone. I almost hit that contact number. But no. After all, as Kyle reassured me that night at the taco truck, it was only three months. I really hadn’t known him that long at all, when you think about it. My guess is, he’s probably changed the sheets on that yacht, and he’s back in the captain’s quarters with another pathetically grateful girl who has no idea her night with the king is going to be her only night with the king, before he chops her off at the heart, too.
I look down at my phone screen. The memorial’s almost about to start.
I try to pocket my iPhone as I get out of the car, but it tangles up in the shoulder strap of my purse. I pause, struggling to free the device from the strap.
“I was starting to think you were never getting out of that car.”
I look up, and my eyes grow wide as the owner of the voice steps out of the silhouetted doorway into the light. It’s a face I haven’t seen in far too long, and never expected to see tonight, here, of all places.
“Mom?
“Hello, sweetie,” she says, her voice quivering with emotion. I’m not going to lie. Her time abroad has been good to her. Her hair looks lush and silky, her attire form-fitting and up-to-the-minute, and her smile warmer and more genuine than the tight grin she used to give my father over the dinner table. Still, it’s impossible to keep the shield from going up. For as little as Dad let it show, her leaving hurt him. And she didn’t leave because of anything he’d done. She left, more or less, because she was just bored. Bored of being a wife. Bored of him.
Bored of me?
“You look lovely,” she says, taking a tentative step forward. She senses the shield that’s gone up, and is smart enough not to violate it. “Even more grown up than I remember.”
“Yeah, well, been the woman of the house for a while now, Mom.”
She takes the dig in stride, only letting it dim her smile a little.
“How the hell did you find out about this?” I ask her. “I’m sure they don’t publish the steel union newsletter in Amsterdam.”
“It’s Antwerp, Sarah. And a lot of people in that hall tonight are my friends, too.”
“Okay. Then, if you knew about him, why didn’t you come? You didn’t even call me. Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because, sweetie,” she says, with another step closer, “we hadn’t spoken in so long, and I knew how you felt about how everything went.”
“Everything you did, Mom. Everything you did. Don’t try to act like you leaving was something that just happened to us.”
“Well, then I know you didn’t approve of what I did,” she says, emphasizing my chosen words. “And I didn’t want to interfere, even though I really -”
“Even though I’d be stuck dealing with all this myself? Without anyone to help me?”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d be alone, Sarah. I mean, there’s Kyle, of course, and -”
My stomach twists in on itself when I hear his name again, and from the last place I would have expected to. “What? Kyle? How do you know about Kyle?”
Mom shrugs, like her apparent clairvoyance is the most natural thing in the world. “Your dad told me about him.”
“What? When? When did you talk to Dad?”
“Sweetheart,” Mom says, finally reaching me. She puts a hand on my shoulder. I think about slapping it away again. But only for a second. “Once I heard he got sick, your dad and I spoke on the phone every week. I knew how you felt, so I’d wait to call when you were at work.”
It’s incredible to think, but after years of believing this woman only cares about herself, learning of this small little courteous act, the only consideration for my feelings our estranged situation would allow her, hits me like a ton of bricks, and the shield finally comes crashing down. “Oh, Mom,” I sigh. Tears flow freely from both of us, and she puts a comforting arm around me, nuzzling her chin against my forehead.
“If it makes you feel better,” she says, “we became really great friends again before the end there. I’d say this last year, we were maybe better as friends than we ever were as a married couple.”
“It does make me feel better.” I sniffle. “Thanks.”
After a moment, my mother glances over my shoulder. “So where is Kyle? Given how you guys met, I assumed he’d be here with you.”
Where to even begin? How do I explain the tornado of events that started with my dad sending out a simple little message on a dating site, like millions of people do every day, and ended with me hurling a paperweight through a hospital waiting room’s coffee table? Not to mention the laughs, sharing, and passion that came in between?
I heave a shoulder-shuddering sigh. “Oh, Mom. The night Dad fell, I was with Kyle. It was the first night he and I…” I let the words trail off, not sure how to describe to my mother the incredible connection Kyle and I’d had on the boat.
Fortunately, Mom’s a quick study. I mean, she has spent a lot of time in France these last few years. “I see. And?”
“And what? I was with Kyle when I should have been there for Dad. I was out wining and dining and…” my voice trails off. “Dad needed me, and I wasn’t there. Because of Kyle.”
“Because of Kyle. So he assaulted you, then.”
“What? No, of course he didn’t assault me.”
“He was holding you against your will?”
“Mom, don’t be ridiculous. Come on.”
“I’m not being ridiculous. You said you were there because of Kyle, not because you wanted to be there with him because he’s exciting and stimulating and everything you’ve ever hoped for in a lover and a partner.” Mom takes my hands. “Sweetie, the night you’re talking about. That was the last night your dad and I spoke. I called him right after you left. It was late in Antwerp, but I just had to hear how it went, and what he thought of Kyle.” She laughs a little, a look in her eyes like I haven’t seen since I was a little girl. It’s the look of a woman who loves Ralph Endicott, in whatever way she’s capable of best loving him now. “He said he’d never seen a guy so nervous before. But he also said, even though you didn’t say a lot, he could see it. ‘Kathy,’ he told me, ‘our Sarahbelle’s gonna marry that fella.’”
The thought of my parents sharing a moment of happiness and pride in their daughter’s newfound love, a love I’ve already lost in the time between then and now, starts me crying again. Mom gives me a handkerchief, and I wipe my eyes and cheeks.
“You know, Sarah, you’re right. You were always right. Your dad never did anything wrong to me. The only reason I didn’t stay married to him was because, after twenty-eight years, you all grown and out on your own, I found myself working too hard, every single day, to think of a reason to. And I’d hate to see you screw up your life by tossing aside a guy you very obviously love because you’re working too hard to think of a reason not to.”
I look up at Mom, unsure what to say. I’ve made such a mess of all this, blamed Kyle for something he had nothing to do with, treated him so badly. But he’d said it, on the way to the hospital, on the phone with the doctor. He said he loved me. Was there any chance, any chance in the world after all I’ve done, that he still might?
“Hey, Sarah? Kathy?”
We both look up to the door. Mitch is standing there. “It’s time.”
“Okay, Mitch, thank you,” Mom says. She squeezes my arm. “Well, sweetie, I guess it’s time to do this.”
“You go ahead, Mom. I’ll be there in a minute. I, uh, I need to make a call.”
Mom smiles. “I’ll save you a seat.” She turns and walks back up into the warmth and light of the union hall.
Just as I pull out my phone, a message alert pings up on the screen. When I look at the notice, my eyes widen, and a sharp, stunned gasp escapes from my lips. Turns out I had forgotten I’d installed the OkEros app.
KC Cash: You still owe me a week. And if you don’t mind, I don’t want to wait another minute for that week to start.
I look up, and immediately burst into happy tears. There he is, climbing out of, to my surprise, a modest Chrysler sedan, which explains why I didn’t notice him pulling up to the curb. He’s still holding his phone, having literally just sent me that message. And, of course, he’s still wearing the sunglasses. Some things never change. And thank God for that.
In a flash, I’m in his embrace. He spins me around, our lips meeting as he twirls me through space. Our kiss doesn’t break even as he lowers me back onto my feet. When he finally does pull back, I quickly wipe tears from my face, and his.
“Oh, Kyle. I’ve been so stupid about all this. Can you ever forgive me?”
He takes off the shades, cups my chin in his hands. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much I missed those eyes that shimmer with depth, warmth, and power.
“Sarah, one of the greatest things my dad ever taught me: Never judge a person by what they do at their lowest moment.” He grins. “Besides, that coffee table at the hospital was dirt-cheap. They must be renting that furniture to own.”
I laugh, giving Kyle a quick, sweet smooch. I could stay nestled here in his arms for the rest of my life. But, I gratefully realize, there will be plenty of time for that. “They’re waiting for us inside.”
“Oh, right. Say, that was your mom you just were talking to, right?”
“Yeah. She made it all the way from Belgium for this.”
“Belgium, huh? We should go there some time. It’s a beautiful place.” His smile takes on a slightly naughty quality. “Excellent chocolate.”
I meet his grin with one of my own. “My bags are already packed.” I snuggle into the crook of his forearm, and as we start walking toward the union hall together, I shoot a glance back at the Chrysler. “So what happened to the Bugatti, and the Spitfire?”
“Oh, I got rid of them. I don’t really need flashy rides like those. Who do I need to impress, right?”
“Right,” I agree, then pause. I look up at him again. “Just one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
I run a finger playfully over his lips and down his chest.
“Whatever you do…please don’t get rid of that boat.”
THE END