“But, hey, at least you’re not dead, right?” Harry grinned.
Jack laughed. There was a part of him that enjoyed black humor. “Yeah, that’s the one upside to being stuck with a face like this.…”
He adjusted himself in the chair, looked around at the small room with the pitcher of water on the bedside, next to the array of photographs of Tom with Grace and their children.
“I’m sure glad you came to visit me, Jimmy,” Harry said as he looked out toward the window. “I’m relieved I don’t have to imagine your parents burying you like I did so many times after I came home.”
“Thank you,” Jack said softly. “I’m glad I came too.”
Harry nodded. “You ever think about time, Jimmy?”
“Time?”
“Yeah, like how we spent our time over there counting the days until we could get home. And now, I don’t know about you, but I spend my days just trying to fill the hours. The days seem so damn slow.…”
“I know what you mean,” Jack said.
“My son, Tom, he’s just a teenager, but he doesn’t understand.… The young people today …”
“Hard for them to understand if they didn’t live it,” Jack said.
“Yes, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Harry said. “I feel bad, but I think I need to cut this visit short, Jimmy. I’m getting tired now.”
“No problem, I’ll come again.”
“That would be great.” Harry started to nod off.
Jack stood up and placed the magazine by Harry’s bedside, next to one of the many framed photographs of the Golden family. He noticed one of Tom, no older than ten, perched on the seat of a red bicycle. He smiled. It was the first time he noticed Katie had Tom’s eyes.
CHAPTER 51
TOM HOISTED THE BICYCLE INTO THE BACK OFGRACE’S STATIONwagon, reassuring his daughter that it was an easy fix to repair the chain.
“Randall will take care of it one-two-three, honey.” Katie forced a smile, her eyes drifted down to her sneakers. She’d been working six days a week and had clocked in fifty hours at $3 an hour, which brought her about $150, and she had already researched and knew Randall’s bike store was selling a new Schwinn with racing-bar handles for $110. Katie really wanted to tell her dad not to spend the money to fix it. Instead, she wanted to use her newly earned salary on getting a new bike.
She wasn’t sure how to stop the repair though, since her father had been so sweet about it. She also knew that asking her parents for a new bike would be out of the question, especially since she was supposed to be pulling more of her weight on things that weren’t really in the household budget. Her dad made a decent enough living, but it was modest compared to a lot of her friends’ parents.
“Dad?” Her voice rose inside her, taking even her a little by surprise. “Do you think I can come with you?”
Tom’s face lit up. It had felt like an eternity since Katie had asked to spend time with him.
“Are you kidding, baby girl? Of course!”
She slid into the saddle-colored seats, the leather cracking beneath her, and as Tom glanced over at his teenage daughter, his heart nearly exploded because it had been months since she had even deigned to look at him. From the time she hit high school last year, Katie’s worldseemed to revolve around her friends and he and Grace were planets she had banished to another orbit.
“Do you want to choose the music?”
She reached over and turned the radio dial to one of the popular stations. Blondie, a group he only knew because she had played their latest record over and over, so often that Grace and he wanted to break it in half, was playing. With the music now filling the air, Katie smiled as she looked out the window.
“We’ll get that track fixed, probably while we wait,” he said trying to coax her into conversation.
She didn’t say anything until they hit the traffic light on Salisbury Road. “You know, Dad … I’ve already earned over a hundred dollars this summer … and I’m thinking maybe I should just buy a new bike.…”
The traffic light changed to red. “That’s awfully responsible of you, Kat … but don’t you think it would be more prudent to save the money for something else? I really don’t think it’s going to cost a lot to repair the one you have now.”
She didn’t answer.
There was something very noisy about the silence of a teenager. Tom felt he could have interpreted it in a hundred different ways. But he chose to take the simplest path, which was to just cherish having his daughter sitting next to him. It was a fifteen-minute drive. He intended to enjoy every second and not spoil it with words she didn’t want to hear.
