IT WAS A hot day even by Miami standards and nowhere was this more evident than in Daichi’s attire. It was the most relaxed Deena had ever seen him. He wore his standard oxford, sleeves rolled up, first button undone even, and paired it with crisp Armani slacks, cuffed to avoid the ocean current. Beads of sweat plastered his hair to his forehead while, next to him, Deena walked in silence. At their backs, on the coastline, was Deena’s architectural rendition of love—Skylife, completed and reaching for the heavens. She had no idea where her next project would take her; already she’d received the letter thanking her for her entry in the “City-Within-A-City” competition. Unlike Daichi, she was not a finalist.
“You were right,” Daichi said suddenly. “This view is quite enjoyable.”
Deena’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and gave it a peek. It was her grandmother. Ever since she’d delivered news of her engagement, Emma had been ransacking her phone line.
“And how are the Hammonds taking this news?” Daichi asked, as if reading her thoughts.
Deena shrugged. “About as bad as expected.”
He laughed. “Worse even than my initial reception of this love affair?”
“Much worse.”
They continued in silence.
“It turns out that Cook was right,” Daichi said suddenly.
Deena blinked. “Michael Cook? About what?”
“About my being shortlisted for the Pritzker. Turns out he knows something after all.”
Deena’s eyes widened. “My God, Daichi, that’s such an honor. When will you know if you’ve won?”
He shrugged. “Yesterday. I got the call yesterday. The ceremony will be in May.”
“What!” Deena shrieked and embraced him before realizing what she was doing. She pulled back with a blush and got to see something as rare as a Nobel Prize winner in the flesh. Daichi embarrassed.
“I’d like for you to accompany me. The ceremony’s in Melbourne, Australia.”
“Me? You want me?”
“Is that so impossible to conceive?”
Deena shook her head. “I—I don’t know. I thought you’d want someone—important.”
Daichi shrugged. “I’d say a daughter is pretty important.”
He flashed a grin for her, the most generous she’d seen, and she couldn’t help but return it.
But he had no idea the effect his words had on her. She’d never entertained the notion of having a father again, and what it would mean, what it could mean. She never thought that she could be a daughter again. And yet she would be.
Soon.
EMMA STOOD AT the narrow stove and waited for the hotcakes’ edges to brown. In a nearby saucepan grits boiled and bacon sizzled. She glanced at the coffee pot and watched it gurgle. In another moment, her biscuits would need to come out of the oven.
Emma slipped the five by seven print from the pocket of her housecoat and peered at it. With a single crooked finger, she traced the outline of the man in the portrait. He was a fine looking young man with the gleam of youth in his eyes, bright like diamonds and just a trace of stubbornness. Emma held that gaze, lost to her forever, before reluctantly tucking it away again.
She’d come across that old picture in Eddie’s keepsake box. Face down, it was hidden just beneath a pair of cuff links given to him by his father, a Cuban cigar from the day their son Dean was born, and a Purple Heart he’d received from his tour of duty in Vietnam. Emma stood motionless, with that picture in hand, her mind weighted with buried memories. And when sleep failed to come for her that night, she stared at that picture and tried to remember the day when she’d become so old and hardhearted.
As Emma removed the hotcakes from the griddle, she thought about the invitation Deena gave her two weeks ago. She’d never laid hands on such fine paper. It was sturdy, sophisticated, beautiful. And those letters! Why, they were raised up on it as proud as anything she’d seen. And while she couldn’t do much more than guess as to what that invitation said, she couldn’t help but notice the similarities between it and her granddaughter.
Emma surveyed the spread she was preparing and glanced at her watch. Deena would be there at any moment. She was on her way over to pick up a copy of her birth certificate so that she could apply for her marriage license. Her wedding day was just three weeks away.
When Deena arrived, she refused the breakfast Emma had gone to the trouble of preparing. Orange juice from fresh squeezed oranges, flapjacks, bacon, eggs, biscuits, grits—she would let them all go to waste. She wanted the birth certificate and she wanted to leave.
“Grandma, you’d said that you would have it out for me by the time I got here,” Deena said, surveying the spread of food in disapproval. “I don’t have time to waste this morning.”
Emma shook her head. “Chile, a good breakfast ain’t time wasted. Now come on in here and make yourself a plate. And afterwards you can help me fine that paper you need.”
Deena watched as her grandmother turned from her, retrieved a plate from an overhead cabinet and began to fill it with food. When it seemed that the dish could hold no more Emma turned to her granddaughter, and watched her reluctantly pull out a chair to sit.
The two ate in silence, with only the occasional scrape of fork and knife against plate, and Emma’s smacking lips to interrupt them. And when their plates were empty, Emma reached into her pocket and dug out her old picture. She watched Deena as she placed it on the table.
With a trembling hand, Deena reached for the picture. A long and lean man with rich chocolate skin, wide almond eyes and a good-natured grin stared back at her. Wrapped in his tight embrace was a smiling woman with a wide and pouty mouth, cornflower blue eyes, and hair like stalks of wheat.
Deena’s parents.
Deena gripped the picture until it shook, tears blinding the nearly forgotten faces. Her father, Dean Hammond, and her mother, Gloria Hammond, eligible for parole in the year 2032.
Emma watched as Deena’s mouth became a hard line, her jaw clenched, and her eyes grew cold. Deena sat the picture back on the table.
Emma stared at the portrait thoughtfully. “You think you could ever forgive her?”
“What?” Deena said. It was not the question she’d been expecting.
“Your mother,” Emma tapped a finger on the portrait. “I asked you if you ever gonna forgive her for what she done.”
Deena shook her head. “I don’t know, Grandma. I’ve never thought about it.”
Emma nodded. Twenty-five years had passed since she’d last heard her son’s voice, fifteen since she’d placed him in that pine box. Time, she discovered, marched on in cruel, unforgiving bursts.
“Maybe,” Emma said as she lifted the picture from the table, “you should think about forgiving her. It’s a hard, hard thing to want your child’s forgiveness and find that it’s beyond your reach.”
Deena met the old woman’s wet eyes. “What?” she whispered.
Emma lowered her gaze. “For a long time I looks at you and your brother and sister and I sees my boy. I see what I loss and I hate you for it—for making me see that every single day.”
Emma swallowed hard, her voice harsh, broken. “I take that hate out on you and I treat you wrong. But it’s not cause I don’t love you, it’s cause I can’t—I can’t stand to see him no more. I can’t stand to see my son looking back at me and asking why I threw him away.” She rubbed her face tiredly. “Listen, Deena. Gone and marry that boy. I ain’t gone stand in your way no more.”
Emma nodded towards the picture of her son.
“I reckon this the closest I’m gone get to a second chance, anyway. I suspect I better take it.” She stood, brushed away a tear, and collected the dishes.