I Like You Just Fine When You're Not Around (29 page)

“To my mother's room; I gotta go.”

“Whoa, girl. I've seen that expression before. You look ready to throttle someone.”

Tig said, “I'll tell you later.”

Pam put her hands on her hips. “Hark!” As if the word were a bridle, Tig jolted to a stop.

“Dr. Monahan, I am in charge of this nursing home today and you will calm down before you enter your mother's room. Do you hear me?” Pam's jaw and teeth were clenched tight. She crossed her arms in front of her slowly. Their eyes locked in a tug of war. One right, one righteous.

Narrowing her gaze, Tig spoke with sudden realization. “You knew.”

Pam, with the slightest flicker of a tell, an almost blink, gave it away.

“You knew about Dr. Jenson and my mom. Of course you did. You had to have known about the finances.” Tig slammed her palm into her forehead. “How could I have been so stupid?”

Without warning, she stomped the rest of the distance to her mother's room, rounding the final doorway. Hallie Monahan—mother, veterinarian, wife, lover—sat slumped in a high-backed chair in front of the picture window in her room. A nurse's call button, pinned to Hallie's off-white cardigan, pulled the neck open and exposed a flowered blouse, a sun-spotted collarbone, and a discolored bra strap. Her head lolled to the side, propped up by a pillow, shrugging itself free of the case. One of her tortoiseshell combs slid free and hung by a strand of hair. Yet Hallie clung to her baby doll, her plastic daughter, never once letting her drop from her lap.

Hurricane Tig lost her wind.

Pam hissed, “Tig.” The torn expression on Tig's face brought out the calm in Pam's. She gently wrapped her soft, cool fingers around Tig's upper arm and led her into the hall, pulling the door to Hallie's room shut behind them.

Tig said, “I'm not the one behaving badly. I did not have an affair. I did not keep secrets.”

Pam took a moment, then said, “I did know. But it wasn't my story to tell.”

“My mother can't tell it; couldn't you have said something?”

“You of all people should understand confidentiality.”

“Confidentiality and a secret affair are not the same thing.”

Pete's face swam before hers, handsome, familiar, and completely unknown.

Pete's smile, Geri's voice. His anger at Tig's insistence that she needed to return home to her family. What had she returned to? Secrets and unanswerable questions.

“Tig, stop acting like a spoiled brat and start acting like the psychologist you are, for God's sake.”

Tig touched her face.

“You're all about stopping the mollycoddling that goes on, so get a grip,” Pam ordered. “What's so awful here? You found out today that your mother has been loved her whole life. The real question here is why she didn't accept that love. Why her daughter is outraged by the thought of it.”

“I'm not outraged by the thought of it. It's the surprise, the uncertainty, the possibilities.”

Pam said, “God forbid, the possibilities.”

Pam walked over to the nurses' cart and plucked out a box of tissues. “You know what nurses are good at?” She proffered the box. “We're experts at calling 'em how we see 'em. You wanna know how I see 'em?”

“I think I have an idea.”

“I think Dr. Jenson is a kind, thoughtful, gentle man who's had a lonely kind of life. Your mother was the charming, secretly guilty ball-buster in your house. Wendy rebelled by being an open door, and you, Tig, were the closed one. It's too late for your mother to change, but not for you.”

“Dr. Jenson might be my father.”

Pam blinked in surprise. Her mouth opened, then shut, then opened very slowly.

“Dear heart, if he is, you are one lucky little girl.”

Pam took Tig by the shoulders, turned her around to face her mother's closed door, and gently pushed her inside. Tig dropped to the floor in front of her sleeping mother, resting her head on her mother's knee. Silent, she felt the warm tendrils of her mother's fingers gently touch her hair, heard her mother's voice finally reading a script from the past that worked:

“There now. There now.”

“Tig?” Alec squatted, his hand a gentle pressure on Tig's shoulder.

There was an ache in her knee. Tig frowned and moved her hand through her hair.

“Are you all right? You're on the floor.”

“Yeah, I'm fine. What time is it?” She looked into Alec's tired expression. His nose was red. “What's going on?” A pit opened in her stomach. She tried to recall why. “You look like I feel.”

“My mom died this morning.”

Tig stood, pulling Alec into a hug. “I'm so sorry.”

After a long pause, he said, “I sent Erin off with a friend all day. I had a feeling. The funeral home just finished.”

Tig examined the dry skin of his hastily shaved beard, the remnants of toothpaste in the corners of his mouth. She glanced at her own mother, still sleeping, the sun shining on the brown spots on the back of her hand. The yellowed nails, the tangled bluish veins still functioning, well enough to maintain her body if not her mind.

“One minute I could feel her. The next she was gone. It's as black-and-white as it can get. Even after going through losing my wife, and now my mother, I don't know anymore about how to prepare myself. How do you get ready for the nothingness where your love used to be?”

“No matter how ready you are, you're never ready enough.”

“You must understand. You lost your father.”

“I wasn't born yet.” Unable to hide her bitterness, she said, “I don't know what I lost or didn't lose.”

His eyes rimmed in red, he said, “What do you mean? What's wrong?”

She smoothed her hair and concentrated on Alec's face. “Nothing. Let's get out of here. Let's go someplace fresh. Can you do that? Do you want to?”

Alec closed his eyes. “I'm so tired.”

“This nursing home must filter narcolepsy gas into its air ducts. Every time I come here, I regret not bringing pajamas. I fall asleep wherever I stop.”

“Maybe you're still jet-lagged.”

“And you're loss-lagged. What d'ya say we go to my place and take a nap. Everyone important has our numbers. Clementine's at my house sleeping all the time. She won't judge.”

• • •

At Tig's house, the oddity of it all set in. Bringing a man home to nap after having discovered life-changing events in both of their lives was just strange.

“I feel weird now,” smiled Tig. “Still tired, but weird.”

Alec said, “I'm too tired to even consider the weirdness. Let's just say ‘sleep is good' and give it a try.” This was enough for Tig. Nonetheless, Alec added, “I need to sleep and I don't want to be alone when I wake up. It's as simple as that.”

There were too many complex thoughts to process in Tig's head while awake. Maybe while sleeping, her subconscious would pitch some answers forward from her wiser brain stem, the prehistoric part of her brain that provided survival options. On the bed, she rested her head on Alec's outstretched arm.

Tig asked, “What was your dad like?”

“He was a good guy. Died seven years ago. Prostate cancer. It was a blessing.”

“Did he go to all your athletic events and give you advice on women?”

“That was my mom. No, my dad was a product of his era. He worked all the time, and then died. He probably had no idea what he missed.” He turned his head and added, “My childhood probably wasn't much different from yours. Strong mother, missing father.”

“Were fathers of that time all like that, do you think? Present but missing, one way or another.”

“I think about that a lot, considering I'm all Erin Ann has right now. You know, am I the father I need to be, or the father of our times? Back in the seventies, our moms were cutting their way out of a box that men wanted them to stay in.” He smiled widely and laughed. “My mom used to say to my dad, ‘I promise I'll never marry again.' My dad took that as a compliment; a profession of their soulmate status. That wasn't what she meant, though. I heard her ask her best friend, ‘Why would I take on another full-grown infant, at my age?'”

Tig smiled at Fern's memory. “I've only ever had a fantasy father. He was made up of all the good things I saw in my friend's fathers. My imaginary father called me sweet pea, went to the father-daughter Girl Scout square dance, righted all wrongs. My dad was Atticus Finch from
To Kill a Mockingbird
, handsome and righteous.” After a drawn-out pause, Tig asked, “Was your wife your soulmate?”

Hearing a raspy intake of breath followed by an exhale indicating sleep, not true love, she stared at him. Alec's rumpled white button-down shirt was frayed slightly at his chin, which made his dark coloring all the more striking. He had a freckle at the exact center of his closed eyelid, and a dark dusting of whiskers showing through his shaved jaw. She placed her lips on his jaw, breathed in his scent, considered staying in this position forever. Cutting the ties of her thoughts, she let them drift away like helium balloons.

• • •

In the margin between sleep and waking, Tig rolled to her side and snuggled into Alec's arm.

“Pete,” she said, and just as she uttered the words she realized her mistake and froze, waiting. Her heart pounded. She checked for a change in his breathing. Nothing. She eased the breath out of her lungs and closed her eyes. Moving away from Alec's arm, she crept from her bed.

She remembered her mother hugging Dr. Jenson, calling him
mon chèvre
. Anxiety began creeping through her thoughts.

In the small cedar chest of her mother's, she searched for the photograph of the young Dr. Jenson. She examined his face and felt her anxiety pick up speed. It began to feel like a train was speeding down the track toward her. She said aloud, “Why am I feeling so anxious?” hoping the universe would give her an answer. She paced through her living room, reached to her throat, and rushed to the front door. She wrenched the handle, shoved the screen door forward, and nearly flattened her sister, who she hadn't seen moving up the porch steps.

Startled, Wendy said, “What? What's going on?”

“I'm just like Mom, aren't I? I can't be happy. I make myself miserable.”

Wendy set Clementine's car seat down onto the sidewalk and grabbed her sister. “Tig. What is going on?”

“Dad's not my dad. I'm doing the same thing Mom did. I'm rejecting love. I've been doing it my whole life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about my whole life being a repeat of Mom's.” She pointed to her sister. “You had a father. You learned to love. I never did—and to think I could have. Mom took that from me. But I don't feel mad. I just feel really, really anxious.”

Clementine awoke with a start and Wendy stooped to unhook her from her car seat and pull her into her arms. “Hush. Tig, what are you talking about?”

“I think my father, my
biological
father, is Dr. Jenson.”

“That's ridiculous. How is that possible?”

“I don't know the timeline or how it actually happened, but Dr. Jenson all but confirmed it.”

Wendy jiggled Clementine. “He did? Well, that is a real plot twist, isn't it? Can I come inside for this kind of earth-shattering news, or do I have to stand on the steps?” Wendy grabbed the car seat and said, “That kind of explains a lot doesn't it?”

“I think it explains why I'm such a mess. I push people away. I'm reliving Mom's life.”

Wendy said, “Oh, shut up, Tig. Make a different choice, then.”

The words blew Tig's fury away. She opened her mouth and said, “What?”

“You've been acting like you have some kind of deadline you have to meet to solve all your problems. Pete, your job, Alec . . . but if you have some kind of deadline, it's self-imposed.” Handing Clementine to Tig, she said, “Here. Hold Clem. She's good at slowing things down for people.” Before Tig could muster a rebuttal, Wendy said, walking into the house, “And don't even start with me by bringing up the time I left Clem with you. That was ages ago, and I was a different person.”

Clem looked at her aunt and placed her hand on Tig's collarbone. A navy blue Impala drove into the driveway and before fully stopping, the car door opened. Dr. Jenson stepped out, an old man with white hair, not the young father of her imaginings.

“Tig,” he said, “I know it seems complicated.” The vibrations of his soft voice soothed her. He said, “Let's start making this a little easier. My name is Jeffrey Jenson. Your mother called me Goat. I may or may not be your father. Either way, we've got as much or as little time as we need.”

Just then Alec stepped outside, rubbing his eyes and looking rumpled. “Is everything all right?”

Jeffrey Jenson said, “Right at this moment, we're not sure. But time will tell.”

The whir and sway of the electric baby swing—part pacifier, part hypnotist pendulum—seemed to focus and soothe the group. Hallie Monahan's memories, in the form of letters and photographs, lay scattered on the kitchen table between Wendy, Dr. Jenson, and Tig. Alec had returned to the nursing home to deal with his own mother's choices in her final days. Clementine dozed, emitting a fragile mewl on every exhale that seemed to put life into perspective for everyone.

Dr. Jenson examined the old photo of himself with his wife and Hallie. “Look at that head of hair. God, I was young.” He smiled warmly and said, “I remember that afternoon. Hallie and Judy were so beautiful. It was the day I realized that your mother and Judy were the loves of my life, and the love of your mother's life was Dan Monahan.” The summer sun from the photograph seemed to touch him, creating a golden halo of youth and remembrances . . . of unrequited loves and wistful glances.