Chapter Twenty-Nine
DAVIS
The night before had been as long as it had been trying, but at least we’d reached some semblance of an agreement. Bottom line: the Lockwoods were staying for a week. They planned to sleep in their five-star motor home and spend as much time as possible with Brandon, which explained why they were both in my home. On a Saturday morning. At a quarter past nine.
It hadn’t been easy to temper my reservations about their unplanned visit, or push away my suspicion of a secondary agenda. But even more suspicious than their abrupt road trip to Oregon was Brandon’s chipper mood. He woke up ready to fill the black hole of awkwardness with an idea for a day trip to Blackrock Lake.
His favorite place on earth. And mine, too.
He buttered his toaster waffles as Vivian, sitting across from him, stirred her coffee.
“Can we invite Callie? She’s never been kayaking before.”
“How do you know that?” I propped my back against the granite and sipped my second cup of coffee, my mind referencing her late-night text once again. Just in case you’re wondering, I think you’re pretty incredible.
“Because she told me,” Brandon said. “Last week. At the mural.” He gulped down his milk and returned his glass to the table with a hard clink. “Hey, maybe I should invite Collin and Corrie, too?” He took a large bite, his fork dripping with excess syrup. “You have enough seats in the motor home, right, Oma?”
Vivian glanced up from her toast, her lips parting as if to respond, when Charles answered from the recliner.
He lowered his copy of Fortune magazine. “Go ahead and ask them all, Brandon. The more the merrier as far as we’re concerned. Right, buttercup?”
Her gaze slanted to the recliner. “Certainly.”
“And Kosher? What about him?” Apparently, Brandon was in the mood for testing the limits of grace this morning.
I rinsed my mug under the faucet and set it in the basin. “I can take him along with me in the Jeep.”
Viv’s teacup stilled near her mouth. “You won’t be riding with us?”
“I’ll be bringing the kayaks.” And with any luck, an adventurous artist, too.
“So you will be bringing your friend, then?”
I turned back to the dining room table. “Is that okay with you?” I’d asked the question in earnest. Inviting Callie along without Vivian’s full consent would be a miserable undertaking for everyone involved.
She set her teacup on the saucer. “Of course, Davis. I’m looking forward to getting to know her better.”
“It’s a Christmas miracle in July,” I said when Callie answered her phone on the third ring.
“Crazy, I know, but I actually plugged my phone in last night. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my battery fully charged.”
I laughed. “You must have been waiting for me to call and invite you to go kayaking today.”
“Kayaking? Really? I just told Brandon last week that I’ve always wanted to go.”
“Well, he wanted to make sure we invited you to go with us. He just asked Corrie and Collin to come along, too.”
Her response held a beat of hesitation. “Would us include the Lockwoods as well?”
“It would.”
“And that’s okay with them—I mean, that I’ll be there? With you?”
“Absolutely. They should be there in about five minutes to pick up the kids. I’m following behind in the Jeep.”
“Five min—Davis! I’m still in my pj’s! I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet!”
“If your pj’s are those cute unicorn pants, then by all means wear those.”
“Oh my—I’m hanging up now.”
“Callie.”
“What?”
“Relax. You don’t have to prove anything to them. Just be yourself.”
“Hanging. Up.”
“Callie?”
“What, Davis?”
“Thank you for your text last night.”
And then I hung up.
Less than five minutes later, I pulled into the Taylors’ driveway and parked to the side of the Lockwoods’ mansion on wheels.
As I stepped out of my Jeep, I greeted Chris and Clementine, noticing their linked hands immediately. After a quick glance around the property, Clementine assured me her sister would be out in just a minute.
“Oh, my gosh, Mom!” Corrianna peeked her head out the doorway of the motor home. “You won’t believe how nice this kitchen is in here! It’s way fancier than ours.”
Clementine slapped a hand to her face as Chris wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’m sure it is, sweetheart. Just remember what we talked about, okay? On the drive over, you need to listen to Mr. and Mrs. Lockwood, and once you’re at the lake, stay close to Aunt Callie. Deal?”
“I know, Dad.”
“And, Collin, make sure you keep an eye on your sister,” Chris added before shooting me a look that said, Kids. “Thanks for inviting them to tag along with you today.”
“Of course, we’re happy to take them,” I said.
“The official tour has been completed, and all seat belts are intact,” Charles announced as all three kids waved behind a narrow tinted window. “We’ll be staying off the main highway, Davis, taking the scenic route. Plus, Viv will want to stop at the store to let the kids pick out food for the picnic.”
“Sounds good. We’ll be on our way in just a moment.” I glanced at the front door again. What was Callie doing in there?
“Last time I checked, Callie was upstairs in our bathroom, searching for a beach towel,” Clem said. “Feel free to go on in. Chris and I are headed into town for a late breakfast.” She patted Chris’s chest and then seemed to remember something. “Oh—and please ignore the giant mess on the front porch. Callie and I are in the middle of a . . . project.”
After the motor home glided through the neighborhood with the deftness of a cruise ship, I strode down the path, waving a casual goodbye to Callie’s sister and brother-in-law, and then took the porch steps two at a time.
“Callie?” I called through the screen on the front door. “Everything okay in there?”
“Yes, sorry! I’ll be right out! Promise!”
Her panicked enthusiasm made me chuckle. “Take whatever time you need. We’re not in any rush. Just don’t blame me if Kosher drinks your iced coffee.”
I made my way to the wooden porch swing—a perfect place to wait on a woman if ever there was one. But I stopped midstep when I saw Clementine and Callie’s project: three large mounds of glossy photographs.
I picked up a few from the center stack and flipped through them, pausing on one. The sweet, toddler-size version of Callie that stared back at me caused something in the center of my chest to shift. Her hair was chin length, the freckles dotting her cheeks and nose more noticeable, but her eyes and smile held the same sparky charisma as they did now. I’d know her face anywhere.
I studied the photogenic man holding her on his shoulders, his hands wrapped around her ankles, eyes locked on the camera ahead. He bore too much familial resemblance to be anyone other than her father.
I shuffled through the next couple of pictures, and then reached for a few more, noting the most obvious common denominator: her father was in every single one.
Rubbing my chin, I tried to recall what, if anything, she’d told me about him. We’d talked at length about her mother’s remarriage to the pilot in Canada three summers ago, and she’d mentioned her parents’ divorce once or twice, but I couldn’t remember a single instance when she’d spoken about her dad.
The screen door burst open behind me, and Callie strode onto the porch in cutoff shorts and a light-colored tank top. “Sorry, first I couldn’t find a beach towel, and then I couldn’t find a bag large enough to fit the beach towel inside of and—”
The excitement in her expression drained away, changing into something else. Not grief exactly, but something equally as jarring. I flipped the first picture around and held it up for her to see. “Your father?”
Her posture stilled as the oversized striped duffel continued to swing from her arm. “Yes, that’s him. Leo Quinn, my father.” Something mechanical and distant had replaced her usual animated way of speaking. It was such an alarming contrast to how she spoke about her other family members that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.
Gently, I returned the pictures to their appropriate stack. “I can’t remember you mentioning him.”
“There’s not much to mention. He’s not a part of my life anymore.” Words that failed to sound nearly as flippant and inconsequential as she likely intended them to.
Her father may not be involved in her life now, but he was certainly still a part of it. That much was obvious.
She stepped toward the stairs, ready to dart. But her reluctance to share only increased my need to learn. To understand where this piece fit into the puzzle of the woman I’d come to care so much for.
“Where is he now?”
“I have no idea.”
Those four words could have been a complete story if anybody else were telling it. But this was Callie. And she was anything but brief.
I eyed the slew of pictures again. “Will you tell me what happened with him?”
“He asked my mom for a divorce a few days after my twelfth birthday. And within forty-eight hours his trunk was packed, and he was driving away from our family home.” She recited the facts as if reading from a textbook.
“And he never came back?”
“Nope. I gave up hope for that after the first three years. It’s been seventeen now.”
Righteous anger flared under my skin. How could any father walk away from his children so willingly? Losing my dad had been almost as painful as losing my wife, but I had over twenty-six years of memories with him.
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you and your sister,” I said. “Your mother.”
“We all handled it in different ways, but each of us figured out how to survive, how to go on,” she said with a slight lift to her chin. “That’s all we can ever do after hard things happen—learn from them. You know that better than most.” She ticked her head toward the Jeep and held out her hand to me. “You ready to get on the road? I could really use a caffeine boost this morning.”
I took hold of her extended hand but made no move to leave the porch. Not yet. Whatever had transpired between her and her father seventeen years ago, and whatever lesson she’d claimed to learn from it, the event wasn’t nearly as insignificant as she wanted me to believe. Abandonment wasn’t a simple hurt. And nothing about Callie’s demeanor convinced me that she’d dealt with the baggage her father had left behind that day. I stood firm as she tugged my hand with extra conviction. “Come on,” she said, adding a half-hearted smile. “We’re wasting good kayaking daylight.”
“Callie.”
“Really, Davis, you don’t need to look at me like I’m a wounded little bird.” Her eyes tinged with annoyance. “A lot of marriages end in divorce. My story is a typical one, cliché even. And though it’s not something I’d wish on anybody—especially a child—he chose to follow his dream, and I can’t exactly fault him for that.”
Was she serious? “I don’t care what reason he gave for leaving. He was wrong.”
Her gaze snapped back to mine. “Marriage isn’t right for everybody, Leo Quinn included. You think serial dating without a purpose is reckless? Well, I think marrying just to be married is even more reckless.”
“Are we debating the purpose of marriage? Or your father’s abandonment of your family? Because those are two very different things, Callie.”
“We’re not debating anything.” The slender column of her neck strained as she looked away. “I’m simply saying my father couldn’t change his innate character any more than I could convince God to bring him back home.”
Is that what she’d done? Pleaded for God to bring him back? Just imagining the little girl in the photograph, her plump cheeks wet with tears, nearly buckled my knees. I knew all about comforting a grieving child. The sleepless nights. The hollow cries. The incessant questions I thought would never end . . . until they did.
The distress on her face caused my mind to flash back to our walk yesterday—to how she’d looked at me when I told her about my anger at God after Stephanie’s death.
Compassion swelled in my chest. “Your prayers didn’t go unheard. I know it might seem that way—believe me, I do. But don’t think for a moment that your dad escaped the consequences of his decision to leave your family.” I forced a tight swallow. “I pity him for the life he’s missed—the future that could have offered him so much more than he’ll ever find living for himself.”
Though her eyes remained tearless, the aching expression behind them caused me to take a cautious step in her direction, and then another. I’d been on the receiving end of suffering too many times to confuse supporting someone with rescuing them. The only way to heal from our hurt was to journey through it, not be offered an escape from it. And whatever journey Callie was on now, I wanted to be on it with her.
I worked to interpret each of the expressions that flickered across her face. But when her gaze finally dragged up to mine, I took her in my arms and cradled the back of her head to my chest. Minutes passed before her body surrendered the fight, her taut muscles loosening under my hold. I measured her breaths, her inhales and exhales, until each pull felt longer and more peaceful than the last.
As I brushed her hair away from her face, I dipped my mouth to her ear. “Just in case you’re wondering, I think you’re pretty incredible, too.”