For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
It’s always ourselves we find in the sea
—e. e. cummings
If You Can Forgive Me…
On the way out of the Pacific Design Center, Owen passes her.
This is the first time he has laid eyes on his daughter in person in more than five years. Five years, ten months, and twenty-four days—to be exact. Five birthdays and five Christmases and eight performances (WickedandCarouselandSpring AwakeningandDear Evan HansonandWaitressandBeautifulandChicagoandCarouselagain) and two graduations (one high school, one college) and three new addresses and a summer in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and the start of her first job. All these things between sixteen and twenty-two that mark it up, the start of a life.
Bailey’s hair is longer, her arms too thin. But, at the moment he passes her—he doesn’t turn to take a longer look; he won’t allow himself that luxury—it’s her skin that gets him.
Bailey is tan, if her skin were capable of tanning, her skin freckled and reddish, perhaps from the daily toll of life in Southern California, perhaps from spending too many days at the beach. How is this possible? Hadn’t she always avoided the beach? It nearly breaks him, such a small and obvious difference in who his daughter has become.
Seeing Bailey online didn’t give this away. Seeing Bailey online was a completely different thing.
Her social media account is now public, which Owen tells himself she’s done for his benefit. He wouldn’t allow her to ever post photos before, but the rules are different now. Owen imagines that Baileyknows this. There is no asking her. Either way, he likes to believe the posts are a way of keeping them in conversation. All he needs is a public computer and her handle and he can go to her page with no record of having gone there. Her smile (how he loved every single thing about his kid’s smile) knocks the wind out of him, each and every time. It’s almost like it’s directed at him:Look, Dad, I’m okay. Look, Dad, you’re not here. Look, Dad, I’ll never forgive you.
Owen walks through the design center lobby, out the revolving doors, and onto Melrose. There is a line of taxis idling. The driver in the first taxi shakes his head, still in the middle of a dinner break. So Owen gets into the second cab and asks the driver to take him to the airport. They are fighting early-evening Los Angeles traffic and it takes longer than expected to get there. It doesn’t matter. He is plenty early for his flight and heads to the first-class lounge, flashes his mobile boarding pass, and goes into a single bathroom, where he locks the door.
He stares at himself in the mirror, takes his first deep breath. Steadies himself. Then he starts to take his clothes off. He strips off the button-down shirt he was wearing, puts on a plain T-shirt and leather jacket, swaps his combat boots for a pair of Converse sneakers. Just like his kid’s.
On the way to the lounge’s bar, he sees a janitor with her large garbage bin and tosses his old clothes inside. Then he takes a seat on the corner barstool, the farthest stool from anyone else, taking out a novel he has no intention of reading.
The bartender puts a wine list down in front of Owen. “What can I get you to drink?” he asks.
“Whatever red you’re pouring is fine.”
“That’s a mistake,” a woman says.
Owen looks up, sees the woman at the other end of the bar,smiling at him. She is pretty, with a short pixie cut, tortoiseshell glasses.
“Sorry?” he says.
“The wine. It’s a mistake. My flight’s delayed. Very delayed. So I’ve been working my way down the list of wines by the glass. They’re all bad.”
He opens his novel, tries to close off whatever conversation she wants to have.
But she moves down the bar, so she’s two stools away from him. “So where are you headed?”
“Business trip,” he says.
“International?”
He’s not surprised she guesses international. His New Zealand passport is sticking out of his book, complete with a name that doesn’t belong to him.
The bartender puts down the glass of wine in front of him along with a bowl of salty nuts. Owen nods a thank-you, takes a sip.
“Awful, isn’t it?”
“It’ll do.”
He offers a quick smile, turns back to his book.
“Should we try our luck at a bottle instead?”
“The thing is…” he says. “I’m married.”
