The Good Father

If she asked me one more time when Nana was coming back, I didn’t know what I’d do. I told her Nana was in heaven and had to stay there and then she worried someone was keeping her in a locked room or something. So I explained about God and how heaven was a good place, but I got scared maybe I was giving her the message that dying was a good thing and I didn’t want her to start thinking she should die. Then she started asking me if I’d go to heaven and leave her. Franny told me I was overthinking the whole situation and making it too complicated. She said to Bella, “Your nana’s gone to sleep in heaven with Jesus and when you’re a very old lady, you’ll get to see her there again,” which seemed to satisfy Bella, or so I thought, until about an hour later when she asked me, “Can we go see Nana in heaven today?”

Man, I wished we could.

Mom hadn’t been perfect. She’d smoked and had diabetes and was overweight and didn’t take care of herself at all, but she’d loved Bella and she’d been happy to watch her while I worked. It turned out the fire was caused by some malfunction in the wiring behind the stove, so it wasn’t anything I could blame on my mother and I was relieved by that. I didn’t want to be angry with her now. I didn’t want that to be the last feeling I had toward her. Instead, I felt grateful. She gave her life for Bella. I couldn’t wrap my head around that—my fat, wheezy mom running into the burning house to save her. “God was working through her,” the minister said at her funeral, and even though God and I had never been on the best terms, I liked that thought. I was holding on to it.

I never realized just how much I’d come to depend on my mother. Now I was it for Bella and it scared the shit out of me. I had no job now. Couldn’t work with a kid to take care of, and no job meant no money. My boss found somebody else to finish up the work on those cabinets in the oceanfront house. There’d been about a hundred guys waiting to step into my shoes.

The thing that really sucked was that I’d been getting paid under the table for my work. That meant cash, and my most recent pay envelope had been in the house. Four hundred bucks, up in smoke. I’d had about a hundred dollars in my wallet when the house burned down. That was what stood between Bella and me and starvation now.

Ahead of me on the beach, Bella squatted down and picked up something I couldn’t see from where I stood. She ran back to me, holding it and her lamb against her chest with both hands. The lamb fell to the sand and when she bent over to pick it up, the object she was carrying fell, too, and I had to laugh.

“Need some help?” I asked as I walked toward her.

“I can do it!” she said as she picked up her lamb. By that time, I’d reached her and saw that the object was a huge pale gray whelk, the biggest I’d seen on our beach, and I’d seen some big ones over the years.

“Wow, Bella, you hit the jackpot.”

“It’s a whelk,” she said. She gave up trying to hold both the shell and the lamb and sat down on the beach instead.

I sat down, too, and examined the shell. Busycon Carica. It was nearly one and a half times the length of my hand and totally flawless, the interior the pale peachy color of a sunrise. I was so glad she’d found it. We’d been collecting shells on the beach since she was a toddler, but most of them had been ruined in the fire and now we were starting over.

“Do you remember what lived inside?” I asked.

“A snail!” she said. She sat cross-legged, gently touching the knobby shoulders of the shell with her fingertips.

“Right. An animal like a snail,” I said.

“That’s right.” Like me, she loved hearing anything about marine life. I felt my own father’s spirit inside me when I was on the beach with Bella, teaching her something. I’d hear his voice coming out of my mouth. I wish they’d had a chance to know each other, my dad and Bella. They would have gotten along so well.

“It liked to eat clams!” Bella said.

“Very good. What else did it like to eat?”

She scrunched up her face, thinking. Her nose was a little pink. I’d forgotten sunscreen. “Scabbits?” she tried, and I managed not to laugh.

“Scallops.” She could never get that word right. Someday, she’d be able to and I’d miss the way she said it now.

She petted the shell like it was a puppy. “Is this the one, Daddy, where the boys turn into girls?” she asked.

I let out a little sigh. Franny was right; I gave this kid way too much information. She really didn’t need to know about hermaphroditic gastropods at age three. Almost four. I’d probably been seven or eight when my father gave me that bit of mind-boggling information.

“That’s right,” I said simply. “Should I put it in the bag and we can look for more?” Over my shoulder, I carried the canvas tote bag we always used for the shells we found.

“Okay!” She hopped to her feet and took off ahead of me down the beach. I followed a few steps behind, moving closer to the water to let it swish over my feet. There was one big difference between my dad and me, I thought. He’d been a plumber with his own successful business and he kept me fed and clothed. I might not have grown up rich, but I never went without. He didn’t fail me the way I felt I was now failing Bella. I wanted more than anything to be the kind of man who would make my father proud. I wasn’t doing such a great job of it right now.

Honestly, if Robin’s father had still been alive, I might have asked him for help. He had plenty of money. The contract he’d made me sign said I would never contact Robin herself—and I was still so pissed at her that she was the last person I’d turn to for help anyway—but I didn’t think her father would be cruel enough to turn his back on his own granddaughter if she was starving. Didn’t matter. He was dead. Mom had been an obituary reader, always checking to make sure her friends were still above ground. I’d felt kind of numb, hearing that he was dead. That man and I had never liked each other. The first time I held Bella in my arms, though, I sort of got where he was coming from. I felt this awesome need to protect her. I’d do anything to keep her safe. That’s all Robin’s father had been trying to do. Protect his daughter. I got it then, even if I still hated the dude.

Bella and I watched the dolphins and pelicans for a while, then started walking home. I’d been feeling so content on the beach, so far away from my problems, that I started heading in the direction of our burned-down house before I remembered and turned toward Franny’s. The tote bag on my shoulder was a little heavier than when we’d started out. Walking away from the beach and back toward my real life, everything felt a little heavier.

6 Robin

2004

DR. MCINTYRE HELPED ME DOWN FROM THE examining table. “Have a seat in the lounge while I chat with your father,” he said. I’d been seeing him for years and he always ended my examinations with a private talk with my father, but something felt different this time. Daddy held the door open for me and as I walked past him, his face looked a hundred years old. He hadn’t quite closed the door behind me when I heard Dr. McIntyre say, “I believe her condition’s significantly worse than your wife’s was at this age.” The door closed before I could hear my father’s response, but it would have been lost on me anyway. I was shocked. I walked down the hall to the lounge, my legs feeling like they were moving through mud. I’d known, hadn’t I? Deep down inside, wasn’t I worried that my mother’s fate—death at twenty-five—would be my own? I knew I was worse off than I’d been even six months ago. I’d never been able to run as fast as my friends or ride my bike for miles like they could. But now, any teensy little bit of exertion left me winded and dizzy. Just the day before, my friends and I were dancing around my bedroom and after two seconds, I had to sit down. From my seat on the bed, I watched them laugh together as they perfected their moves and it was like I could actually feel them drifting away from me.

Now I sank into one of the leather chairs in the lounge and waited. Even if I hadn’t heard what Dr. McIntyre said, I would have figured it out because by the time my father walked into the lounge, his eyes were red. He motioned for me to walk with him and he held my hand tightly as we headed through the double doors and out to the parking lot. Neither one of us said a word until we reached our car. I don’t think either of us could speak.

“I love you so much, Robin,” he said finally, as he opened the car door for me. “I want everything good for you.”

“I heard what Dr. McIntyre said,” I admitted, “about my heart being worse than Mom’s. Does that mean I won’t live as long as she did?” I’d just turned fifteen. That gave me ten years, max.

“You’ll live longer,” my father said quickly. “Probably even a normal lifespan, because the doctors know more about your condition now than they did ten years ago, and more people are signing those donor cards, so when you need a heart, you’ll get a heart.”

I wasn’t stupid. I knew it wasn’t that easy. I slid into the passenger seat and my father shut the door and walked around the rear of the car while I stared at the dashboard.

“I want you out of PE altogether,” he said once he was back in the car and turning the key in the ignition.

I was already sitting on the sidelines for just about every activity we did in Phys Ed anyhow, but I hated one more thing that was going to set me apart from my friends.

“It’s not like I’m exactly straining myself in there,” I said.

“And I’m going to drive you to school from now on.”

“Dad,” I said. “You have to get to the university early.”

“I’ll rearrange my schedule.”

“What’s the difference if you drive me or I ride the bus?” I felt him chipping away at my freedom. He’d always been super overprotective. I had the feeling it was going to get a lot worse.

“You have to walk to the bus stop and there’s just too much … excitement on the bus.”

“No, there’s not! What are you talking about?”

“Just … humor me, okay? I want your life to be as easy and peaceful as possible.”

What he wanted was to be with me every minute. Protecting me. Suffocating me. Soon, he’d have me chained to his side.

For the first time that night, I understood real fear. In bed, I felt my heart pounding against my ribs and heard the blood whooshing through my head, and I was afraid to go to sleep. My mother had died in her sleep, her heart stopping without warning. So I stayed awake for hours listening to every echoey thump, like I could somehow keep my heart going if I just paid attention to it.

My father drove me to school the next morning. I caught up with my friends as they got off the bus and they were all talking about a boy my best friend, Sherry, liked and a party they all wanted to go to and how Sherry hoped the boy would kiss her there and how maybe there’d be beer and weed. I couldn’t find a way into their conversation and they forgot to slow down for me as we walked into the school. Sherry and I broke away from the rest of them as we headed for our science class, and we didn’t seem to have much to say to each other. I could hardly keep my eyes open, worn out from a nearly sleepless night. While my friends had been dreaming about boys and parties and getting drunk, I’d been doing my best to stay alive.

There was a new boy in our science class. We sat at two-person tables, and since the boy who usually sat next to me was absent, Miss Merrill stuck Travis Brown in his place. He looked more like he belonged in the sixth grade than the eighth. Short and skinny. When I handed him the stack of papers Miss Merrill wanted us to pass around, he didn’t look me in the eye. He had these really long eyelashes and thick hair that hung over his forehead. He looked like a girl and he seemed really sad. He was the kind of boy who’d be a target for some of the idiot bullies at my school.

“Robin,” Miss Merrill said from the front of the classroom, “after class, please share the assignments from the last few weeks with Travis so he can get caught up to the rest of us.”

“Okay,” I said, because I couldn’t really say I didn’t want to. From a few rows in front of me, Sherry turned to give me an I’m glad she asked you and not me kind of grin.

The last thing I wanted to do after class was hang out with this weird new kid, so I told him I’d email him the assignments that night. As I was walking out of class, though, Miss Merrill called me to her desk.

“I picked you to help Travis for a reason,” she said to me. “His father died recently. I thought you might be able to understand what he’s going through.”

“My mother died a long time ago,” I said. “It’s not really the same.”

“Isn’t it?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Not really,” I said again, but as I walked to my next class, Travis’s email address and phone number in my pocket, I knew she had a point. We were both half-orphans. You never got over that.

I emailed him the assignments that night, but when he didn’t understand something I’d typed, I impulsively decided to call him.

“Miss Merrill told me your father died,” I said, after explaining the assignment to him. “My mother died when I was four. So I think that’s why she picked me to help you.”

“Not really the same,” he said.

“That’s what I told her.”

“You’ve had your whole life to get used to it.”

“It’s still terrible,” I said. “I don’t remember her very well, but I still miss her. Miss having a mother.”

He was quiet. “My father was so cool,” he said after a minute.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“No. You?”

“No.” I felt the loneliness suddenly. Mine. His. “It’s hard.”

“Yeah, it sucks. And then we had to move on top of it. We couldn’t afford our house in Hampstead anymore and my mother has friends at the church here, but I hate it. We’re renting this old dump. I hate your stupid school, too. The beach is the only good thing about living here. My father always took me to Topsail and we’d hang out on the beach.” It was like I’d plugged him in and suddenly all these words were spilling out of him.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“Carolina Beach.”

“Oh.” I never hung out with the Carolina Beach kids at school. My father had always seemed to look down on them, an attitude I guessed I’d picked up without meaning to.

“What about you?” he asked. “Where do you live?”

“In a condo in Wilmington near UNC, where my father teaches.” We talked about our neighborhoods and I knew we were living totally different lives. Mine was clean and orderly and middle class and his sounded sort of thrown together in an emergency.

“At least you have friends here,” he said, “I’m starting all over.”

“I used to have friends,” I said. “Not so much anymore.” Wow, was that true? I felt like I was finally admitting it to myself. When was the last time Sherry called me instead of me calling her? When was the last time she texted me? My friends were moving on. Leaving me behind.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“They’re … I don’t know. They’re changing in a way I’m not. They don’t talk about anything important anymore.” I made it sound like I was leaving them. Not the other way around.

“Most girls are like that,” he said. “Airheads.”

“Major generalization.”

“Maybe.”

He told me about his old friends in Hampstead and how cool they were. I told him who was okay at my school and who he should watch out for and then we started talking about music we liked and before I knew it, it was ten o’clock and Daddy was knocking on my door telling me to go to bed.

“Is that your father?” Travis asked.

“Yeah. He wants me to get off and go to bed.”

“It’s only ten.”

“I know.” I looked over at my bed, remembering how I’d stayed awake most of the night before, trying to keep my heart going. “I’m afraid to go to bed.” I bit my lip, wishing I could take back the words. I couldn’t believe I’d said that to someone I hardly knew.

“Why?”

“It’s just … It’s stupid,” I said. I didn’t talk much about my heart. I didn’t like people to think I was weak. The scrawny, girly image of him suddenly popped into my mind. Why was I talking to him at all? But the words wanted to come out in the worst way. “I have this … I have the same heart problem my mother had,” I said. “And yesterday I found out it’s even worse than my mother’s was, so last night I kept feeling it beating when I was in bed and it freaked me out and now I don’t want to go to bed.”

“Wow.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “You could call me,” he said finally.

“What do you mean?”

“Call me from your bed and we’ll talk about other stuff. It’ll keep your mind off your heart. And keep my mind off my father,” he added.

“That’s crazy.”

“You could,” he said.

“No, thanks,” I said. “And I have to get off. I still have to read a chapter for history and you have all those assignments to check out.”

“Like I’m really going to do that,” he said with a laugh. “See you tomorrow.”

I hung up the phone and got ready for bed, thinking about what a total dork I was for spending an hour on the phone with him. But once I was lying in bed, my heart started hammering against my rib cage and I felt like I couldn’t pull a full breath into my lungs and before I knew what I was doing, I reached for the phone and hit Redial.

He answered so fast, I knew he’d been waiting.

He became the person I looked forward to seeing at school. Not Sherry or my other long-time friends. As I was losing them, I was gaining Travis. He didn’t fit in well with the other boys. It wasn’t only his looks, although honestly, I was starting to think he was cute. He had really nice gray eyes beneath those insanely long eyelashes and although he didn’t smile often, when he did, he kind of tipped his head to the side in a way that made me smile back. He was too down over his father’s death to make much of an effort to fit in. He talked to me a lot about him, and I felt jealous that he’d gotten to know his father so well when I’d been cheated out of knowing my mother. His father sounded amazing. I loved my own father and I would have said we were close, but Travis’s father was almost like a best friend to him. A really, really good father.

We talked on the phone more than we emailed and it took me a while to realize the old computer he shared with his mother was always breaking down and they didn’t have the money to get it fixed. I didn’t know what it was like not to have enough money for something as necessary as a computer. We had three in our condo for just Daddy and me. Travis had to use the one at the library sometimes to get his work done—and he did get it done even though he always acted like he didn’t care about school. My father drove me to his house every once in a while so we could study together and afterward Travis and I would slowly walk the two blocks to the beach and he’d talk on and on about the tides and the surf and the marine life—all the things he’d learned from his father. My own father seemed to like Travis and called him “that nice little boy at the beach.” He was happy I was no longer hanging around my old friends, who were getting wilder by the minute. The nice little boy at the beach struck him as much safer.

By the time summer rolled around, I was hardly speaking to Sherry and everybody, and that was okay. We had nothing in common anymore and they always wanted to put distance between themselves and Travis, who seemed like such a loser to them. That summer, Travis and his mother spent the entire two months with his aunt in Maryland, and when he came back he looked completely different. It was such a shock. When I saw him the first day of school, I honestly didn’t recognize him. He’d had a growth spurt so huge it must have hurt. He was taller than me and he had muscles where he used to be all skin and knobby bones. He actually needed to shave! No one would ever think of him as girlish again. Especially not the girls, Sherry and my former friends included. They practically threw themselves at him, but he hadn’t forgotten how they treated him. And he hadn’t forgotten the one girl who treated him like he mattered: me.

I’d changed, too, over the summer. I suddenly understood my old friends’ fascination with guys and I saw Travis in a whole new way. We settled back into our friendship pretty easily, but there was something new and exciting cooking beneath the surface and we both knew it. We still spoke on the phone nearly every night, but our conversations were different, full of unexpected twists and turns.

“I met a girl in Maryland,” he told me one night, soon after school started.

I tried to act cool, though I felt ridiculously jealous. “What was she like?” I asked.

“Nice. Pretty. Sexy.”

I didn’t think I’d ever heard him use the word sexy before and it set all my nerve endings on fire. I was dying at the thought of him kissing her. Touching her body.

“Did you do it?”

He laughed, sounding a little embarrassed. “Almost, but no.”

I felt relieved. “Are you still … I mean, do you want …”

He laughed again, and this time I knew he was laughing at me. “Spit it out,” he said.

I shut my eyes. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it pounding through my back into my mattress. “Are you going to see her again?” I asked. “It’s not like Maryland’s on the other side of the country.”

“No, I’m not. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

“Why not?”

“Because the whole time I was hanging with her I wanted to be with you.”

Yes. I couldn’t believe how much I’d wanted to hear him say that! “I love you,” I said. I blinked my eyes open and stared at my dark ceiling, biting my lip. Waiting.

“Since when?” he asked. Not exactly the response I’d wanted. But I thought back.

“Since that first night we talked on the phone. Remember? How you said talking would keep me from thinking about my heart and you from thinking about—”

“I love you, too,” he interrupted, and suddenly everything was different.

I missed tons of school that fall because I was weak and kept getting sick. My father was afraid every time I left the house for “the germ factory,” which is what he’d started calling my school. Travis was driving by then, this little old Honda of his mother’s, and he’d pick up assignments and books for me and bring them to our condo after school. My father didn’t like it. At first, I thought it was because the books and papers were coming from the germ factory, but then I realized he didn’t like Travis and me being alone together. Daddy’d had no problem with Travis when he looked like a harmless, skinny little kid. Now, though, he looked like a man, and suddenly Daddy wasn’t crazy about him. When Travis finally asked me to a movie, my father said I couldn’t go. Daddy and I were sitting in our den. I was doing my math homework on the sofa while he answered email and he didn’t even bother to look at me when he told me no.

“Dad,” I said, looking up from my work, “we’re just friends. It’s no big deal.”

He took off his reading glasses and set them on the desk. Whenever the glasses came off, I knew we were in for a long conversation about what I could and couldn’t do. It had been that way for years. “Honey,” he said, “one of these days you’re going to have a new heart and you’ll be able to live a full and active life, but until then, staying healthy and taking it easy are your top priorities, and—”

“Sitting in a movie with my best friend isn’t going to tax my heart,” I argued. I rarely fought back. I’d been taught not to argue by both my father and my doctor. They’d taught me to avoid conflict and stress for the sake of my failing heart. I was supposed to breathe slowly and repeat the words peace and calm in my head over and over again until the urge to fight passed. But some things were worth fighting about and this was one of them.