“Amen to that. You don’t know the half of it.” Jasper scratched for a moment behind one ear. “Getting back to where I was, though. It was the neighbors I remember. See, at some point a police car pulled up to our house and took my dad away. That was pretty scary for me, and I can vaguely remember Louise trying to calm me down, to reassure me that he wasn’t in any trouble. I wonder sometimes if she knew what had happened and was being strong for me.
“Anyway, the neighbors. One by one, as the news started to spread, people began showing up on Louise’s front porch. It was a big front porch, overlooking First Avenue and the service station across from her. There was a swing, chairs, a metal glider.
“People came and sat silently with us. One after the other, until the porch was full of neighborhood people. No one knocked. There may have been a small murmur of conversation, but the reason this sticks out so clearly in my mind, in my little boy memory, is that it was so quiet, and I wondered why no one was coming in.
“You see, they all knew by then. News like that traveled quickly, especially in a town the size of Haddonfield.”
Jasper blinked as a couple of tears slid down his cheeks.
“They were all there for me,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “They were all waiting to see how the little boy who was suddenly left without a mom and sister was.
“I don’t know if I talked to them. I don’t know if anyone even hugged me. I do remember Louise leaning close to speak with them in a hushed voice. I remember the sadness in her brown eyes when she took me back inside, closing the door behind her.
“She didn’t tell. Not that day. All she did say was that I was spending the night with her and Jessie, her husband. And that she was going to make me my favorite supper—fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn on the cob, with apple pie for dessert.”
Jasper stared down at the ground. After a long time, he finally looked back at Rob and smiled. He stretched.
“That talk of fried chicken and apple pie has made me hungry. What do you say we go get some lunch?”
Rob hadn’t been sure what words he could offer that might temper the horrible memory Jasper had shared with him, so, only to himself, he had to admit he was relieved by the change of subject. Perhaps later the right words would come to him, as they did as he sat in front of a blank computer screen so many mornings, but for now, eating lunch seemed like a perfect idea.
He stood up. “I bet you have just the place in mind.”
Jasper stood next to him, brushing the dust off his butt. “I do. I do indeed. You okay with a hippie joint? It’s not far from here.”
And even though Rob had no idea what a hippie joint would be like and suspected Jasper knew even less, he was intrigued.
And glad their day would be continuing.
“SO Itake it this place has been around for a long time?”
Rob sat with Jasper on the covered patio of a restaurant called the Amber Waves Café. The place looked like it had stepped out of a time warp from the late 1960s. It had this homespun, crunchy granola, rundown hippie vibe—and the food was organic and incredible. It was a couple of miles from the cemetery, but Jasper again had insisted they walk, in spite of the way the day had changed from sunny and clear to overcast with a promise of rain later. The smell of rain was in the air. Rob was surprised he could still detect that aroma, even after years and years of desert living.
They’d had lunch, bison chili for Rob and a BLT for Jasper, made with seitan bacon.
Rob had pointed to the sandwich. “Is that any good? You a vegetarian?”
“Yes, it is good. And no, I’m not.” Jasper took a bite of the sandwich and washed it down with his Happy Heart, a juice blend of apple, carrot, ginger, and parsley.
“This was Lacy’s favorite thing on the menu. I guess ordering it makes me feel a little closer to her. She’d approve. She and I would come here a lot. Many a Saturday morning, you’d find us here nursing hangovers and eating pancakes.” He smiled. “She was a vegetarian, but you knew that, right?”
Rob didn’t answer. He didn’t know. He supposed there were a lot of things he didn’t know about his own daughter—especially changes that had come about in the recent past. But he didn’t want to talk about his deficiencies. Instead, he commented on how amazing his bison chili was. The truth nagged at him—for the last couple of years or so of her life, Heather, or Lacy, hadn’t spoken to him. Moving to Chicago had been her way of asserting her independence. But, it had also been a means by which to punish him and the people she’d once thought of as her parents.
He stared down into his beer. He’d always thought there’d be time to mend fences, to repair the damage.We never know, do we, when the old clock will run out?He smiled sadly at Jasper. “What are we gonna do next?”
Jasper gave him a pointed look. “You’re avoiding talking about her. That’s okay. I get it. But we will, sooner or later.” He pointed first at Rob and then at himself and said, “But this—you and me—can’t really progress too far if we don’t discuss her. I know we both loved her.”
Rob nodded and said quietly, “We will. Can it just wait until a little later, though?” He shrugged and heat rose in his cheeks. “It’s really painful for me.” He left it there. He could have added, “Especially when you consider the role I might have played in her suicide,” but he was unable to mouth the words. They would be like an arrow to his heart.
Rob hurriedly finished his chili and grabbed their waitress as she passed. He handed her a credit card and asked her to tally up their bill.
She walked away. Jasper frowned. “Lunch was going to be my treat.”
“How about you buy me dinner?” Rob cocked an eyebrow at Jasper.
“Fair enough. You like Ethiopian food?”
“I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve had it.”
