“Just like old times.”
She wiggled in place like an overwound toy, and I felt like jittering along with her. I thought better of it, however. Given my luck, I’d fall and prove Deborah right about the walker.
“Cool!” Her high-pitched squeal vibrated through the entry hall and might have shattered the crystal in the dining room. Suddenly in a rush, Epiphany headed for the stairs. “I gotta go get ready.”
“Hold on,” I said, and then felt the need to correct her. “You
have
to go get ready.”
“Right. I have to.” She turned toward the stairs again.
“I’ve moved my things to the powder room off the kitchen,” I told her before she could flit off. “You can use the bathroom in the master suite. Annalee always loved her vanity area and the full-length mirrors in there. She left some paraphernalia in the closet you might want to use.”
Spinning around with her mouth agape, Epiphany staggered off the bottom step. “You mean . . . the . . . I can . . . Like . . . the shoes . . . and . . .” She caught my gaze with intensity, waiting for me to explain myself.
“We are going to the sort of place where one
dresses
for dinner. Take anything you like from Annalee’s closet.”
Epiphany looked down at her clothing, smoothing the front of her T-shirt self-consciously. I could only imagine what she had in the backpack. “Meaning more than just changing into jeans
without
holes and a clean pair of flip-flops,” I added.
Looking down at her feet, she wiggled her toes. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Someplace . . . fitting the occasion. It’s a big night.”
A dark brow arched upward. “Not someplace over by the airport, I hope. Because I’m scared of the airport.”
Standing there, she seemed so young. Too young to be flying off to Florida for a monthlong visit with family members she’d never met. I’d made a few arrangements to be certain she was looked after, though. I still had friends in Florida from my days at the cape. “You’d best get used to it, if you’re to be flying out next week.”
“I’m not scared to fly. I’m just scared of the trip to the airport. Russ’s taking me. Actually, me driving might be safer than riding with Russ.”
“Highly unlikely.”
“Thanks a lot.” She gave a sardonic smirk, then hitched up the backpack and darted off, her voice echoing behind her. “I gotta get dressed! This’ll take a while!” She disappeared down the hall with the speed reserved for the young and nimble.
Despite being old and far from nimble, I proceeded on to my designated bathroom, and was dressed and ready long before Epiphany. I paced the living room, turned on the television, flipped through the channels, tried to watch, but my mind was rumbling like a rocket on the launchpad just before liftoff. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt such anticipation—perhaps in the moments after
Surveyor
left for the moon, or when the astronauts of
Apollo 13
splashed down, alive and well. Yet perhaps even those days didn’t compare to this one. This day was not of my own making, but an act of God, the sort that cannot be questioned or denied, but only observed with a profound sense of awe.
When I heard Epiphany’s steps in the south hall, I rose and met her in the entryway, near the bottom of the stairs. She paused in the shadows of the corridor, shrinking into herself, lifting her hands palms up, her nose crinkling. “Is it okay, do you think?”
I smiled as she stepped into the light, slightly unsteady in a pair of sequined silk sandals Annalee had purchased at a market in Morocco. To go with the shoes, Epiphany had chosen a cocktail dress in red satin and black lace, something Annalee had worn with a sweater at Christmas, when Roy played with a jazz quartet at a charity ball. I couldn’t remember anything else about the dress except that Annalee wore it on that happiest of happy nights, one of our last holidays with Roy. “I think it is perfect,” I said to Epiphany. “Annalee would be so pleased.”
Epiphany’s lips lifted into a smile; then she spun around and hurried unsteadily back to the bedroom, returning with her flip-flops dangling from her fingers. “No way I can drive in these things, though.” The sandals were a hair too small, perhaps, but passable. Balancing on one foot, she removed Annalee’s Moroccan sandals and then slipped into her flip-flops.
“As long as you change when we reach the restaurant. No flip-flops tonight,” I said, and then held out my arm. She put a hand under my elbow, as if to support me, and I paused to show her the manner in which a lady should expect to be escorted by a proper gentleman. “Just catch me if I fall,” I said.
“No problem, J. Norm.”
As we proceeded up the hallway, I took a walking cane from the umbrella stand, so as to pacify Deborah. Under no circumstances did I intend to be seen toddling around behind the rabbit cage tonight. A man does have his pride, after all.
I was relieved when Epiphany chose not to kibitz about leaving the walker behind. She merely strolled with me to the car, helped me in, then settled herself into the driver’s seat, and we were off on another of our little adventures.
When we were just a block from our destination, I asked her to pull over in a parking area.
“What for?” she questioned, letting the car drift to a halt in an empty commuter lot. “You getting cold feet or something?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Although, at this juncture, every nerve in my body had come alive, as if I were filled with electrical circuits and someone had just thrown the switch. “I want to drive.”
Epiphany’s mouth dropped open. “You want to
what
?” Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “No way. You’re not supposed to drive. Deborah doesn’t even really like it when I drive you.”
I pointed toward tall brick walls that formed the back of a series of buildings ahead. “We’re almost there. It’s just around the corner and up the block a bit.” I was deliberately vague, so as not to give away all of my secrets, even though I was about to share at least one. “I believe I can be trusted to pilot my vehicle that far. It won’t do for the inaugural recipient of the Annalee Evans Alvord Memorial Scholarship to pull into a swanky joint and be seen changing out of her flip-flops, now, will it? I’ll drive and you change your shoes.”
“I can change . . .” As usual, Epiphany argued first, then processed. “The . . . what? Scholarship . . .” Putting the car in park, she turned to me, her hand falling off the steering wheel and landing on the console with a slap. “J. Norm, what are you talking about?”
I couldn’t contain my smile. It was pressing through from the inside again. “Deborah and I discussed it. We want to provide a scholarship for an exceptional high school student to attend St. Clare’s. It’s now an academy focusing on math and science, and an outstanding school. Small classes, opportunities for enrichment, a curriculum tailored to the needs of the individual. Almost all of their students are awarded funding for college. If Annalee were here, she’d want you to be the first to receive a scholarship in her name. She would be so pleased, Epiphany, so proud of the type of young lady you are.”
Epiphany looked at me for a long while, then sniffled and blinked, dabbing underneath her eyes. “Man, J. Norm. You’re ruining my makeup.”
“My apologies,” I said, then slipped a hankie from my pocket and gave it to her, our gazes holding fast again. “You deserve this, Epiphany. You’ll change the world someday.”
She swallowed and wrung the hankie in her hands, looking down at it and slowly shaking her head. “No, I don’t. I mean, but . . . Deborah thinks it’s okay? She’s not mad or anything? I bet St. Clare’s costs some serious money.”
“A bit,” I agreed. “But worth every penny. You’ll have to work very hard there, of course. It’s no cakewalk.” My thoughts ran ahead, filling me with a sense of anticipation. I couldn’t wait to see Epiphany removed from the school in which she was surrounded by negative influences, faced with bullying and intimidation, and moved to an environment in which she could thrive. “I can help you with math and science, of course, but in literature, English, and public speaking, you’d be on your own.”
“Uh-oh.” She laughed and sniffed again, still looking down at the hankie, thinking it through. Her mouth pulled into a frown. “Mama won’t ever let me do it, J. Norm. You know she won’t. As soon as she hears ‘St. Clare’s’ and ‘private school,’ she’ll have nine million reasons why I can’t go there.”
Smiling to myself, I reached for my door handle. If we didn’t proceed, dinner would happen without us. Deborah and Lloyd were probably in the restaurant already, Deborah checking her watch. “Have a little faith, Epiphany. I have the rest of the summer to charm your mother into it.”
The comment won a soft, if slightly rueful chuckle. “Oh, well, if
you’re
gonna charm her, then we got nothing to worry about.”
“You’d be surprised what I am capable of.” Opening my door, I swung my legs around and stood up. In that moment, I felt ten feet tall, capable of anything, a man still in the prime of his usefulness, if not in the prime of his life. There were yet worlds for me to conquer, mysteries left to solve, bridges to be built. “Now switch places with me and change your shoes.”
For once, Epiphany did as she was told. We traded seats, and she slid her feet into Annalee’s sandals, then freshened her makeup. Occupied with looking in the visor mirror, she didn’t see where we were until we’d pulled into the portico and the valet came out.
Gasping, she took in the valet stand, the building, the sign painted in antique letters over the door: TUSCANY RISTORANTE
.
“J. Norm . . .” she whispered, her breath rising and falling as she pressed a hand to her chest, her skin a soft, golden brown against the black lace of the dress. “We’re . . . we’re going here?”
Her reaction was exactly what I’d been hoping for. “It’s a special night,” I said. “I think they should meet the lovely, charming young woman they’ve missed out on, but it’s up to you. I didn’t tell them who you were when I arranged to have dinner here, and I won’t, if you don’t want me to. But I think you should consider it, and tonight’s as good a night as any. There’s always time for people to change, Epiphany. As long as there’s life, there’s hope.”
The valet opened the door, and we exited the car. Forgoing the walking cane, I waited for Epiphany on the curb, then held out my elbow. “Make sure I don’t fall and embarrass myself on the way to the table.”
“I will,” she answered, and hooked her arm with mine. “Don’t worry, J. Norm. I got ya.”
“I’m depending on it.” We walked up the long red carpet, and the doormen opened the doors.
“You nervous?” Epiphany asked softly, looking around the candlelit interior as somewhere in the dining room a string quartet played “Sentimental Journey.”
“Somewhat.” I doubt I would have admitted that to anyone other than Epiphany, but in truth, she already knew.
“Me, too,” she whispered, trying to peer around the corner as we stopped at the maître d’s stand. Behind a privacy wall, the dining room and a central dance floor were only partially visible. “You think they’re in there?”
“One way to find out.” Leaning over the stand, I gave my name.
The maître d’, a young man with a Mediterranean look about him, stopped writing immediately. “Oh, yes. Yes, sir! We have your party waiting. It is a special night for you, I am told.
Una riunione di famiglia
.”
A reunion of family.
“Yes, it is.” Perhaps tonight would be a family reunion in many ways. One could always hope.
“Follow me, please,” the maître d’ offered with a flourish. As he guided us toward the dining room, Epiphany’s hands compressed my arm, as if she were dangling off a cliff, clinging to the rope. I laid my fingers over hers to draw comfort as much as to offer it. We were on a journey again, Epiphany and I, traveling an unknown country.
My heart pulsed in my throat, the beat strong and measured, heavy with anticipation as we rounded the privacy partition and started through the dining room, past a large wall with an old brick fireplace, past diners seated at cloth-covered tables beneath black-and-white photos that detailed the history of Tuscany Ristorante, past the grand piano and the string quartet that reminded me of the black-tie celebrations Annalee and I attended during our days at the cape, past the dance floor where couples spun ’round and ’round to a Viennese waltz. We strolled slowly toward a table in the corner where, finally, I spied my daughter and son-in-law. Deborah was laughing just then, her head tipped back, her smile radiant, so like her mother’s. The chairs at the table were filled, except for the two reserved for Epiphany and myself.
Noticing our approach, Deborah touched the hand of the person across from her, a tall woman with soft red curls piled loosely atop her head. Next to her, a woman with a face that seemed too young for her gray hair turned to look, and then the whole group paused, hanging as if in suspended animation. No one needed to tell me which were my sisters and my brother. It was as if I knew them still, as if they had been inside my mind all this time, waiting to become real. I could see bits of myself in each of them. There were seven at the table in all: Deborah and her husband, my two sisters, two spouses, and a brother—the baby whom Cecile had bounced on her knee. Perhaps someday we would discover what had become of Johnny, the little boy who toddled through the yard after the twins, scattering dandelion seeds to the wind.