The Shortest Way Home (28 page)

It was late morning, the slowest part of the day, and Cormac told him to take his break.

“Hey,” he said to Cormac, pulling off his apron. “Think I could borrow your father again next week? Something I ordered requires assembly.”

“Heck, yeah!” Cormac turned toward the kitchen and raised his voice. “You want Pop? He’s all yours.”

A loud grumble replied, “Nothing I’d like better than getting sprung from this sweatshop! Especially with Goliath for a boss.”

“Kinda makes you yearn for a slingshot, right, Uncle Charlie?” Cormac’s cousin Janie said, approaching the counter.

“Ain’t
that
the truth!” called Mr. McGrath.

Sean took a bottle of water for his break and Janie got her coffee and joined him at a seat by the window.

“I saw you the other day,” Sean said. “I was jogging around the lake and you and the guy you’re with, you were standing on the front step of a house. Looked like a serious conversation, so I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Janie thought for a moment. “Yeah, that.”

His eyebrows rose a little, inviting further comment, but not wanting to pry.

She shrugged. “Just trying to figure it all out,” she said. “It’s not like when you’re in your twenties and you love someone and that’s all you need to know. Now there are kids and houses, and potential kids and potential houses. . . .”

“Complicated.”

“
Way
too complicated. And me personally? I just don’t think I’m that complicated.”

“Me either.”

“Wanna get married?” she said, deadpan, and they both burst out laughing.

“Okay, how’s this for complicated,” he said. “My father, who dumped us with my aunt almost thirty years ago and never came back? He’s back.”

Janie’s face dropped. “No way.”

“Yeah, he’s holed up at the Comfort Inn out on Route 9, waiting for me to decide whether I want to see him again. Beat that.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Wow, Spinster. What’re you going to do?”

He shrugged. “Half of me wants to go just to tell him how badly he screwed us all up. Half of me wants to say, ‘Sorry, that door’s closed.’ ”

Janie nodded. “I have no idea what I’d do if my father showed up out of nowhere.” She looked up at Sean and there was a melancholy behind her eyes.

“You’d see him,” he said.

“Yeah. I probably would. I don’t know what Cormac told you, but my husband was killed in a bike accident almost two years ago. I met the old guy who hit him, and he was out of his mind with regret. Gave me a new perspective on forgiveness.”

“My father says he just wants to apologize.”

They sat there for a moment. “Maybe you should see him, Sean,” she said gently. It was the only time he could remember her using his actual name.

* * *

A
fter work, he walked. He started off heading for home, but then decided to see if Rebecca was back from the spa yet. Her house was in the opposite direction, but it felt good to move after standing in one place all day.

Janie’s words bobbed around in his head. There were as many reasons to see Da as there were not to. Sean was coming to the conclusion that the dilemma defied analysis when he turned onto Rebecca’s street. The house was dark. He rang the doorbell anyway. No one came. He considered waiting, but she could be taking the later shift and have clients until eight. Or she could have plans after work. With someone other than him. If he’d had a cell phone, he would have called, but he didn’t, so he turned back down her street and began the long walk home.

* * *

H
e was tired and hungry when he arrived, and made sandwiches for himself and his aunt. Deirdre’s sticky work sneakers had been left in the front hallway, but she was gone now. The dog paced around the kitchen as Sean spread mustard over the slices of deli turkey. The dinner was quiet until Aunt Vivvy said, “Please remind me of Kevin’s whereabouts.”

“He went to Boy Scout camp. He’ll be back at the end of the week.”

“Boy Scout camp—the only participants being boys, I assume?”

“That’s how it works.”

“Sounds noisy. Are you sure he wanted to go?”

“Are you suggesting that I
made
him go?”

“I’m suggesting that living with a bunch of rowdy boys for a week doesn’t strike me as Kevin’s cup of tea. He likes you very much. He might have done it to please you.”

A prickle of anxiety ran across Sean’s scalp. He had pushed the idea, and Kevin had certainly been ambivalent about it. But he seemed okay when Sean dropped him off.

“No, he definitely wanted to go,” said Sean. “He loves the outdoors.”

Aunt Vivvy took another bite of her sandwich and declined to comment further.

* * *

T
hat night, with the house dark and quiet, Sean called the Comfort Inn. He waited while the desk clerk connected him to his father’s room.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll meet you.”

Da sighed. “I appreciate it, son. I know it’s not easy.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I had it in mind that we might try the old IHOP over by the post office.”

“Fine. How’s eight?”

“Of course. I’ll be there waiting. I’ve got gray hair now.”

“I’ve got a bit of gray myself.”

“Don’t you worry, lad. I’d know you with my eyes closed.”

* * *

T
he next morning Sean pulled into the IHOP parking lot, but he could not make himself get out of the car. He could feel his pulse racing and counted it just to be sure. Ninety beats per minute. High, but not heart-attack high. Apparently he would survive this.

Still he couldn’t get his legs to move, and he suddenly had a desperate wish not to be facing it—him—alone. Deirdre had made her intentions clear, but even if she had agreed to come, she probably would’ve made it harder. Her temper was a lit fuse these days. Aunt Vivvy was unthinkable. And Hugh probably would’ve arrived stoned. A reunion with the man who abandoned you as a child—what better excuse to smoke a bone? The idea did have some appeal.

But that was pothead Hugh. What about sock-buying Hugh? For the hundredth time, Sean felt the regret of never having known that side of his brother. The strange thing was that he could almost imagine it. There had always been a patience and a generosity to Hugh that outshone even his worst tendencies.

Sean had never prayed to his brother—a more unlikely saint there never was. But he found himself thinking of him now, praying for guidance, and for the strength Hugh had obviously shown in the face of Kevin’s difficulties. Sean closed his eyes, and he could almost feel Hugh sitting in the car with him.

It’s all good, man,
said St. Hugh.
Loosen
up.

Easy for you, you dead bastard.

A saintly laugh.
Breathe. You’re up to this.

No, I’m really not. What if he falls apart?

Toss him in the air a few times—works like a charm.

What if
I
fall apart?

Then
I’ll
toss
you
.

CHAPTER 34

M
artin Doran sat at a booth, back straight, wearing a button-down blue shirt. His hair was, in fact, completely gray. It had been tar black the last time Sean had seen him.

He stood when Sean approached, chest up, shoulders broad, as if Sean were the captain of the SS
IHOP
and his father one of the crew. His eyelids flickered nervously, and he thrust out his hand for Sean to shake. Sean looked down at it. There was a thick scar across the first knuckle that Sean had never noticed before.
Must be new,
he thought.
In the last thirty years, anyway.

He reached out and took his father’s hand for a quick shake, but it was long enough to become reacquainted with the worn-leather feel of it. The only difference was that his own hand was no longer dwarfed in size. He looked up and saw the older man’s relief. A handshake. As good a start as any.

“Sean.” He studied his son’s face as if he might catalogue every freckle.

“Da.” Sean looked away and sat down.

The waitress bustled quickly over with a plastic jug of coffee.

“I’d prefer tea, if you don’t mind,” said Da.

“Orange juice, please,” said Sean.

After she left, Sean took a closer look at his father. Tiny capillaries had broken under the skin of his cheeks, like hairsbreadth red spiders scattering into the crevices of his wrinkles.

“So,” said Da. “A bit of a quandary knowing where to start.”

Well, don’t look at me,
thought Sean.

“I want to know all about you and Hugh and Deirdre, everything I missed. But the fault is mine that I missed it in the first place, so I know I’ve no right to it.”

He straightened the knife and fork on his napkin. Right angles. A compulsive habit Sean remembered from childhood. “I’ve no desire to talk about myself,” Da went on. “I’m guessing you might not care all that much. But please let me begin to apologize.” His gaze went hard into Sean. “Words may mean nothing at this point, but Sean Patrick,
I’m sorry.
I never should have stayed away as I did. It was weak and shameful, and even if the three of you find it in your hearts to forgive me someday, I shall never forgive myself.”

A painful ache started behind Sean’s eyes, and his throat tightened like a clamp. If he had known what to say, he wouldn’t have been able to say it.

The waitress returned with the tea and orange juice. “Have you decided?”

“I don’t believe we have,” said Da. “Give us a quick minute, will you?” When she left, Da asked, “Can you eat?” Sean shook his head. “Shall I talk or shall I shut up and let you talk?”

Sean could feel tears like a pinhole leak threatening to burst, and he tightened his molars against it. His words came out in a guttural surge. “Where’ve you been?”

Da wrapped his thick hands around his mug of tea. The steam curled into the air-conditioned air between them. “At sea mostly,” he said. “Container ships. I tried to spend as little time on land as possible. I fell into the bottle between runs.” He took a sip of his tea. “Shame and loneliness,” he said. “A man’s best drinking mates.

“Aboard,” he went on, “your mind is always busy, doing things proper, avoiding trouble. The danger is a blessing.” He was quiet for a moment, and it seemed he was waiting for Sean to comment. “I had a little flat in Tacoma, Washington, for a bit. Good place for a mariner. Lots of ships. But then my hand got smashed—a chain snapped and flew out like a cobra. Nearly took off my arm.” He turned the wrist of the scarred hand, and Sean could see that the knuckles were slightly misaligned. “If it had hit me in the head, I’d have gone to my reward.” Da gave a mirthless little snort. “Such as it may be.”

The waitress circled back, pad in hand. “Two short stacks, please,” said Da. When she left he turned back to Sean. “I didn’t want to disappoint her. You don’t have to eat it.”

The interruption helped Sean settle down a little. “You were working until a couple of years ago?” he asked. This was hard to believe. The man was over seventy.

Da nodded. “An able-bodied seaman can sail as long as he’s able-bodied. I was known to be a hard worker. It kept the demons away.” He flexed the hand and then clenched it. The index and middle fingers didn’t curl as tightly as the others did, Sean noticed. Someone had done a very patchy job on those tendons, but there was clearly some nerve damage, too.

“No more runs,” said Da, “no more hiding from the demons.” In a drunken haze one night he’d left his hot plate on, he told Sean. A dish towel caught fire and then the curtains. He might have killed everyone in the building if a couple of passing skateboarders hadn’t seen the flames and called the fire department. “The neighborhood pests,” Da said. “Always whizzing by and giving you a heart attack. These were my saviors.”

The landlord evicted him, and he drank himself into a stupor of undetermined duration—he didn’t remember much other than getting kicked repeatedly when he slept behind a Dumpster down at the port. He wandered into a place called Nativity House that offers services and meals to the homeless. “At first it was just a warm place to be during the day. The staff were kind, some of them young people, just out of university. One of them—his name was Declan Kelly—he reminded me of you and Hugh. A funny, freckled boy who played backgammon with me and annoyed me to no end with his talk of detox and the AA. That’s Alcoholics Anonymous.” The young man had slowly chipped away at Martin’s resolve to drink himself to death, found a treatment program for him and a halfway house after that.

The pancakes arrived, and with his good hand Da slowly slathered his with butter and jam. Sean’s stomach was in no mood for visitors, and his pancakes remained untouched.

“It was the AA that got me thinking of finding you,” said Da. “They have a program with twelve steps. One of the steps is making amends to those you’ve hurt or wronged.”

Sean’s anger surged. Apparently this was just an item to check off on some drunkard list. “So that’s what you’re doing,” he said drily. “Making amends.”

Martin laid his knife on the side of his plate. “No. As I told my sponsor, there’s no such thing when the wrong is as wrong as this. I came for two things only. To tell you face-to-face how sorry I am; and to give you a chance to scream or yell or punch me in the nose, if you’ve a mind to. You must be carrying quite a burden of anger, the three of you, and the least I can do is provide an opportunity to vent it a little.”

The old man picked up the knife again and resumed his careful spreading of butter and jam, as if it were an art project of some kind, or possibly occupational therapy for his remaining good hand. Sean considered his offer. He had no urge to punch his father, or to scream and yell. He knew the story, understood the series of events. There was just one thing he wanted to say.

“You left us with Aunt Vivvy.”

The knife went still. “Aye,” he murmured.

“She didn’t want us.”

Da let out a sigh. “That woman is a cold bit of mackerel, and don’t think it didn’t trouble me greatly. But she
did
want you. It was
me
she didn’t want.”