9. Nine Months Ago
PENNY
It had been two days since I’d heard from Gavin after he stopped by to tell me his dad was sick. Pasta sauce was cooking on the stove for dinner, and Milo was upstairs playing video games when my husband came home from his two-day business trip.
“Hey, you,” he said. He walked up and kissed me on the cheek. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” I said as I set down a spoon to give him a proper hug. He held me longer than usual.
“So, Gavin’s in town. I saw his car in his dad’s driveway.”
“I know,” I said. “He came by here on Tuesday. His dad is sick. Stage four prostate cancer.” I started getting choked up.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry to hear that.” He was being totally sincere. We all loved Gavin’s dad, Frank. “Should we take some food over to them? Is there anything I can do?”
“I’ll text him and take them a couple of plates. I was going to see Frank anyway. Milo misses you, so you guys should probably catch up.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
I didn’t text Gavin, though, because I felt like he would say no. He didn’t like me cooking for him. He thought it was too weird. I understood why. I made him avocado toast once and he looked at it for five minutes before taking a bite. When I had asked him what was on his mind, he’d said, “I was just thinking about what it would be like.”
“How what would be like?” I had asked.
“If you and I had ended up together.”
“Well, I’d expect you to pull your weight around here. It wouldn’t be me serving you all the time. Count this as your Christmas present.” It was July when I had told him that.
He laughed and said, “I don’t want you cooking for me okay, P? Not even toast. Can you respect that?”
I did respect it. But this was a different situation. His dad was dying.
After I ate with my family, I made two plates out of the leftovers, threw on a jacket, and headed over to Frank’s. Gavin’s car was there and I could hear him on the porch, softly playing the guitar. Was it our song? His back was to me as I approached. The music stopped.
“Hey, P.”
I walked up the steps to where he was sitting in the swing. “How’d you know it was me?”
“Because your ankles crack so damn loud when you walk. Your knees, too. I could hear you coming from four houses away.”
I frowned. “Thanks.” I hated that I had abused my body so much in my teens and twenties. It was funny, though, that Gavin noticed things like that about me. It added to the long list of comparisons I couldn’t stop making between Gavin and my husband. Like how I could dye my hair orange and my husband wouldn’t even notice, yet Gavin noticed whenever I bought a new T-shirt.
I held out the plates. “I brought you and your dad some pasta with chicken and salad.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” He stood, put his guitar down, and kissed me on the cheek as he took the plates from my hands. “But thank you. Come on in, he’d love to see you.”
There was already a hospital bed in the center of the living room. Frank was lying in it, watching TV. “Sweet Penny,” he said, his voice strained. “I’m so glad to see you, honey.”
I hugged him and kissed the side of his face. “I’m sorry, Frank.”
“Well, I’m not dead yet. You don’t need to go moping around here. Gavin has that covered.” I turned around and looked at Gavin. In the light I finally noticed his eyes were puffy and bloodshot. It seemed like Frank was too young to be dying. He wasn’t even sixty yet.
“Milo will want to see you, I’m sure,” I said.
“Of course. Bring him down.” Frank had occasionally helped me with Milo when I was in a pinch. My husband worked seventy hours a week most of the time. I could leave Milo with Frank when I needed to. The two got so close that he gave Milo his entire collection of baseball cards, and even took him to a Rockies game once. Gavin had never been interested in sports, so it was nice for Frank to have someone to bond with over baseball.
Gavin wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and put his chin on my shoulder. I went rigid.
“Sorry,” he said, but he wouldn’t let go. “Dad, are you gonna tell Penny your brilliant idea? Or should I?”
“I’ll tell her. Why not? It’s a great idea. Well, I just thought while Gavin’s in town, you know . . . maybe you can introduce him to one of your friends? He’ll have this house when I’m gone and . . .”
I jerked my head back, turned around, and glared at Gavin.
“Well, Frank—” I started to say, but he interrupted me.
“You know, ever since he screwed it up with that nice girl Jenn, he’s been back on the market.”
“Dad, I think we’re putting Penny on the spot here.”
That wasn’t really the role I played with Gavin; we generally tried to stay out of each other’s business in that way. The truth was that any matchmaking I did would end in disaster, especially while Gavin was dealing with his dying father.
“I know a girl. I’ll talk to her,” I said, just to make Frank happy.
Gavin laughed through his nose. He knew I was lying.
“Perfect,” Frank said.
A few minutes later, Gavin walked me out to the porch. “So, this girl—”
“Ha. You know I would never subject anyone I know to your shenanigans.”
“Just sit down with me for a sec, P.”
“I have to get back home.” I thought of my husband, waiting upstairs alone for me.
“Five minutes?”
“Fine.” We sat side by side on the cold porch steps. The only light came from the TV inside; even the moon was nowhere to be found. “I think you need to fill me in on some things. Like, how you’re going to inherit this house, and live on the same street as me.”
“I’m not. This isn’t my speed. You know that. I’ll sell it once he passes.” Oddly enough, that hurt my feelings. Was it my speed?
“There are still tattoo artists in Fort Collins, Gavin.”
“You know what I mean. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m down, way down. I feel lost. I was driving the other day and had a weird impulse to floor my car and drive off an on-ramp.”
This was normal Gavin talk. He was always being dramatic. But this time I felt like he had good cause. “Why is it okay for me to live here, but not you?”
“Did you hear me? I said I was going to drive off an on-ramp. Anyway, are you really going to do this to me right now? You really want to know why I can’t live here? Because you have a kid and a husband, and I have no one. Not even a dog. You want to hire me to mow your lawn or some shit, or walk Buckley, or hang out with Milo while you go to five-star dinners with your husband?”
“Are you trying to hurt me now?”
“No, you’re trying to hurt me by making me face these truths right now. Penny, you and I are not the same. Our lives are vastly different. I feel like I ruined mine. I’m lonely as fuck and my dad is going to die in this house, and I’ll be the only one here for him. This is why I told you to have another kid. Milo will be it. It will all be on him. I know how it feels.”
He was hitting below the belt now. “You know I tried to get pregnant again.”
“Did you?”
I stood up to leave.
“Wait. I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
“No, it wasn’t, and by the way, I will be here for you. Me!” I pointed to my chest hard. “As always, Gavin. Maybe you can even order a hot nurse when your time comes.”
“Not funny, Penny.”
I smiled. He could see my face in the TV light, and I could see a small smile playing on his lips, too. “It’s a little funny,” I said. We were the only people we could be this way with.
He shook his head. “I’ll walk you home.”
“No, I’ll be fine. You’ll hear my ankles crack all the way down the street.”
“Fine. Bye.”
“Bye,” I said. When I got to the bottom of the steps, he jumped and landed beside me, grabbing my hand at the same time.
Pulling me along, he said in his typical fast-talking way, “I’m walking you home so shut up. You’re a sitting duck with those noisy ankles. There’s wild animals around here, like Tanya Fairmore in that blue house and Barrette Kiels next door to her.”
“We do have some weirdoes on this street.”
“That’s why I hate suburbia. We’re safer in the ’hood. There’s a nurse coming on Saturday. I doubt she’ll be hot.” He squeezed my hand. “But at least I’ll have a break. You want to go see The National with me at Red Rocks? I have an extra ticket.”
We were at the front door of my house. “You know I can’t do that. Is it just you going?”
He nodded.
“Ask Mike,” I said.
“Yeah, no, it’s fine. I’ll figure it out.”
“But, God, I would love to see them there,” I said.
“That’s why I bought them, Penny,” Gavin replied.
The door swung open, and the air grew thick with silence. We’d had many uncomfortable moments like this, with me and Gavin on one side of the threshold and my husband on the other. It was like getting caught kissing your boyfriend good night in high school. In this case, my husband was the strict dad who waits up all night. It wasn’t fair to think of him that way, but in moments like these, I couldn’t help it.
“Hi, Gavin. I’m so sorry to hear about your dad.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that, man.” They shook hands.
“So what did you buy for our Penny here?”
I answered for him. “Oh, Gavin has a nurse coming over on Saturday to cover for him, so he asked if I wanted to go see The National at Red Rocks with him.”
My husband frowned. “What’s The National?”
“A band,” I said.
“Oh,” he replied.
We were all standing in the doorway awkwardly. “Milo has that project thing anyway, so I told him I couldn’t go.”
“You can go,” he said. “I’ll work on the project with Milo. Why don’t you come in, Gavin? Have a beer.”
“I gotta get back to my dad.” He pulled the tickets from his back pocket and said, “You know what? You guys take them. Milo can come and hang out with me and Frank . . . and Nurse Betty.” He looked at me and winked.
My husband took the tickets and said, “Fantastic. Thank you, Gavin. We could use a date night.”
I wanted to cry but instead I hugged him and said, “Thank you. Hang in there, buddy.”
He whispered in my ear, “You’ll be thinking about me when you fuck him tonight.”
I pushed him off me. “Stupid,” I said.
“I’m joking, lighten up. You’re starting to act like Jenn.” Milo was calling to my husband from upstairs, so he waved to us dismissively and walked away.
“Don’t do that, Gavin. He already thinks our friendship is weird. Couldn’t you tell he was pissed? And I can’t believe you gave him the tickets. You love The National.”
“He’ll get over it, right? Tell him I whispered you had bad breath or something. He couldn’t hear me. Anyway, I gave him the tickets because you like The National more, and I wanted you to see the show. So there. Don’t say I never do anything nice for you.”
He bent over quickly and kissed my cheek. “See ya, P.”