Kiss Her Goodbye (16 page)

She hands over the white bakery box and the plastic Wal-Mart shopping bag she just filled with candy corn and pumpkin-shaped marshmallow Peeps on clearance.

“Fried cakes!” he exclaims, peering into the bakery box. “I love these.”

“I know you do.” She smiles. She, too, adores the frosted, sprinkle-covered doughnuts unique to western New York and this time of year. There's nothing like freshly baked fried cakes and hot apple cider on a brisk autumn day. She's missed that in the years since she left, just as she's missed true Buffalo wings, and beef on weck, and concord grapes . . .

Funny how she never realized she was homesick until she actually came home. Homesick for more than food, she acknowledges, a lump rising in her throat as she watches her father looking over the contents of the doughnut box.

Dad is homesick, too. That's why he keeps trying to run away.

“You got me a whole dozen?” he asks, delighted.

“A baker's dozen,” she clarifies around the lump in her throat, and he chuckles.

“Good thing I'm not superstitious about thirteen.”

“Good thing. And you'll have enough to share with all of your friends here.”

“What friends? You mean the jail guards? I'm not sharing with them.” A mercurial scowl dissipates once again when he sets the box aside and looks into the plastic bag. “Candy!”

“Yup.” She watches him tear into cellophane as eagerly as Riley. Dad has a sweet tooth to rival any child's. He always has. One of her few happy childhood memories is of going to the five and dime with him, and being allowed to fill a big paper bag with all the penny candy it could hold.

“I forgot it was Halloween,” he says around a mouthful of orange marshmallow goo. “Are the kids going out trick-or-treating later? Or don't they do that these days?”

“They do it, but they already did.” Kathleen perches on the edge of the bedside chair. “Halloween was yesterday.”

“Oh.” He looks embarrassed. Why didn't she let him think that he knows what day it is? What difference does it make?

“Riley was Winnie the Pooh this year,” she goes on with forced cheer. “And Curran was a baseball player.”

“How about Jenny?”

Dad insists on calling her that, though nobody else ever does. Kathleen is never sure whether it's done out of affection, or if he simply doesn't bother to remember her name.

“She didn't get dressed up.”

This was the first time ever. Back in Indiana, Jen wore a Halloween costume and went out trick-or-treating right up until last year, and Kathleen has no doubt that the friends she left behind still are. But here, the kids Jen's age don't wear costumes—at least, not elaborate ones. Sure, a handful of older kids showed up late in the evening with trick-or-treat bags, unchaperoned. And they had made only halfhearted attempts at disguises: a fake mustache, perhaps a wig, an eye mask at most.

“Don't give them candy,” Matt advised Kathleen when she complained that they were running low on Kit Kats and Nestle's Crunch Bars.

“I'm afraid not to.”

“Why? They're too old and they're not even dressed up.”

“Yeah, but I get the feeling it's like blackmail. When they say trick or treat, they mean it.”

Sure enough, this morning, she woke up to a neighborhood decorated with toilet paper and Silly String and strewn with smashed pumpkins. For the most part, the Carmodys' lawn and trees were spared, and they brought the pumpkins inside before dark, but there were eggs around their mailbox. It was easy to tell who had turned the older kids away without candy; those houses were hit hard.

“Jenny's getting too old for that kid stuff,” her father says now. “How old is she, anyway? Twelve? Thirteen?”

“She'll be fourteen tomorrow.”

“Already?”

“Already.”

Kathleen falls silent as he crams another sugar-encrusted Peep into his mouth, his dark green eyes thoughtful. She wonders if he's thinking about the granddaughter he once refused to know; wonders if he has any regrets about all those wasted years.

It was Aunt Maggie who convinced Kathleen to invite her father to her small wedding in Chicago, just as she convinced her niece to have a priest officiate, rather than the justice of the peace she and Matt had originally chosen.

That her father decided to attend caught Kathleen utterly off guard.

That she found herself asking him to give her away did, too.

But in the end, she supposes, it all comes down to the fact that he is her only parent—the one who raised her. She loved him, loves him still, despite all of his mistakes. And deep down inside, she knows that he loves her despite her own.

So he walked her down the aisle, and she caught him wiping tears away as she and Matt exchanged vows. Later, she caught him holding his granddaughter's hand as she toddled around the reception.

He never did apologize for throwing Kathleen out when she told him she was pregnant; she isn't even certain that he
is
sorry. Nor is she certain that she forgives him for it.

But she does understand that he's a throwback to another era, to a deeply religious generation, at least in her family. Right or wrong, he did the only thing he was capable of doing under the circumstances.

If anybody understands that, it's Kathleen.

With an inner shudder, she forces her thoughts back to the present.

“What is that nurse's name, Dad?”

He looks around. “What nurse?”

“The one who was here a few minutes ago. She's always so nice, and I . . . I can't ever remember her name.”

“Do you think I can? I'm lucky if I know what day it is, remember?”

She laughs, pretending it's a joke, knowing that it isn't.

“I went to mass this morning for All Saints Day,” she announces, knowing that it's ridiculous to need her father's moral approval after all these years, but unable to help herself.

“That's good.”

“I'm sure the priest will be by later to bring you communion.”

“Father Joseph?”

“Father Edward, Dad.”

Kathleen watches her father reach into the bag of candy again, selecting a package of candy corn. He opens it and pops a few pieces into his mouth.

She tries to think of something else to say. These visits can be excruciating. It's easier when one of the kids or Matt come with her, but they rarely want to, and she doesn't blame them.

“Father Joseph was here earlier.”

“Dad, that was Father Edward,” she repeats patiently. “Father Joseph retired years ago.”

He frowns, looking confused. “Are you sure?”

“I'm positive.” That's what she heard, anyway, on one of her visits back to Buffalo. She hasn't been in touch with the priest in years. Fourteen, to be exact. She couldn't bear to face him, not after all that happened.

“Well, I don't know about that, but he's been here a lot lately,” her father says. “He comes in to check on me.”

Kathleen holds back a weary sigh. It isn't easy to watch her father make the long, slow decline into senility. Most of the time he's utterly lucid, but other times he's hopelessly confused. That's why it's so scary that he manages to run away from the home as frequently as he does.

One day last week when she woke him from a nap, he called her Mollie. And he still claims somebody is stealing his socks and underwear.

Dad takes another handful of candy corn, munching it.

“I'll bring you some of Jen's birthday cake next time I come, Dad,” Kathleen promises, glancing at her watch, wondering if she's done her duty yet.

“Whose cake?”

“Jen's,” she repeats. “Her birthday is tomorrow, remember?”

“I knew that!” His expression is reproachful. “You just have to stop mumbling. I can't hear you.”

“Sorry,” she practically shouts.

“That's better.”

Lord, this room is overheated. She could take off her coat, but then she'd feel obligated to stay even longer. The smell of institutional food wafts unappetizingly in the steam-heated air. Down the hall, she can hear somebody moaning in pain in one room, a blasting television laugh track in another.

Kathleen glances longingly out the rain-splattered window, and then again at her father. How does he get through the dreary days in this place? How can he stand it?

“Dad, Matt and I are coming to get you tomorrow,” she hears herself saying.

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she wants to take them back. What the hell is she doing? Why is she further complicating her life right now? Jen's birthday is always a difficult time for her, and this year it will be even harder, given the circumstances. The last thing she needs is to throw her cranky, confused father into the tense mix at home.

Maybe he didn't hear me,
she thinks hopefully.

But he's looking up from his bag of candy with enthusiastic interest, asking, “Why are you coming to get me tomorrow? Are you taking me home?”

“To
our
home, yes. For Jen's birthday party,” she says as gaily as she can manage. “You can come over for dinner and cake, and then we'll bring you back.”

“I can't go anywhere without a wheelchair.”

“Really? You seem to do just fine every time you make a jailbreak.”

“I'm not supposed to go anywhere without a wheelchair,” he repeats, looking stubborn.

He's given her an out, but for some reason, she won't let herself take it. Instead, she shrugs and says, “The home will let us use one for a few hours. I'll ask the nurse.”

He considers it.

Then, to her surprise—and, truth be told, her dismay—he shrugs and says, “Okay.”

Kathleen forces herself to feign enthusiasm, to say “Great!” and then forces herself to spend a few more minutes making idle conversation with him.

Then, when she can no longer stand it, she says, “I have to get going now, Dad. I have a lot to do before the kids get home this afternoon.”

A lie. She has nothing to do. Nothing but brood.

“All right.”

“I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay.” He nods as she kisses the top of his head.

“Betty,” he calls when she's halfway to the door.

She pauses. Sighs. Turns to say gently, “I'm Kathleen, Daddy. Katie.”

“No, the nurse. You asked me what her name was. I just remembered. It's Betty. She was named after Betty Crocker because her mother loved to bake.”

As she makes her way down the corridor, past the painted mustard-yellow cinder-block walls and withered residents visible through open doorways, Kathleen can't help smiling, telling herself that Dad might not be as feeble—or as far gone—as she thought.

 

 

“You're going pretty fast,” Jen tells Robby as he steers around a corner, the tires squealing slightly.

“Yeah. It's no fun if you go the speed limit.” He straightens the wheel, eyes focused on the windshield as the wipers bob rhythmically across the glass.

Jen wants to tell him to slow down, but doesn't dare.

He'll think she's wimping out, and she isn't about to do that. No, she's in this for the duration.

She stares out her window at the closely set, nondescript two-story houses, noticing how different this neighborhood is from her own. Here, the trees tower high above rooftops, fences are made of chain link, and driveways are occupied by cars and old pickups, not SUVs and Volvo Country wagons. Most of them even have rust spots around the fenders and tailgates.

She can't imagine what they're doing in this part of Buffalo, a good twenty minutes from Woodsbridge. She was expecting him to take her to the mall, or maybe out to eat, or . . .

Okay, a motel room did cross her mind once or twice, but she's pretty sure that isn't what he's got planned. In fact, if anything, he's been less amorous lately than he was when they first hooked up a few weeks ago. Maybe he's turned off by the fact that she's a virgin. Or maybe he's seeing somebody else behind her back. Somebody more experienced.

Somebody like Erin.

She winces at the mere thought of her best friend—former best friend, that is. Erin hasn't been speaking to her since Robby decided he liked her. Jen has been trying to convince herself that she couldn't care less—that Erin is shallow and disloyal. But now she wonders reluctantly whether she's the one who is both of those things.

Erin was her only true friend in Woodsbridge. Now, alienated from her parents and siblings as well, Jen has nobody.

Nobody but Robby.

“Where are we going?” she asks him yet again, noticing that he seems to be checking the street signs as they fly by. “Do you even know? Or are we totally lost?”

“We're not lost,” is his terse reply. “And you'll see when we get there. It's a surprise.”

She smiles. A surprise. For her birthday, no doubt. How he found out that it's tomorrow, she has no clue. She certainly didn't bring it up to him.

She tells herself that she should be exhilarated, not fearful. This, after all, is an adventure.

They take another sharp turn, this time on two wheels. She bites her lower lip to keep from crying out as he swerves to miss scraping a utility pole on her side. He's driving like a maniac, and she's starting to think he's trying to get them killed or something.

His hands are clenching the wheel so tightly that his knuckles are jutting white knobs, bringing to mind a skeleton's bones and sending another ripple of worry down her spine.