“What do you mean ‘anything else’?”
“I’m sorry, he does whatever he wants.” Thomas sighed, glancing at the neighboring table.
Manon followed his gaze and burst out laughing. “Is he sitting there now?”
Raymond gave Thomas a mischievous glance and reassured him that he would get him out of the hole he’d just dug his son into. Thomas found himself once again speaking words that weren’t his own.
“It was a gray afternoon. You and your mother were wearing matching blue flowered dresses; you looked like sisters. My father gave you some caramels, and your mother let you take them. The two of them were sitting on a bench, discreetly holding hands while you played hopscotch. You came up to them and asked who the man was. Your mother replied, ‘A summer friend, sweetheart,’ and you ran off to play again, carefree and happy. When fall came, you asked your mother about the man who’d given you the caramels. She knelt down and told you the truth this time—that he was very dear to her. She made you promise to keep the secret.
“The year you turned ten, you were practically a shoo-in to win a dance competition, but then you broke your collarbone when you slipped on a balance beam during a gymnastics class. You were inconsolable, and your mother took you to New Mexico to take your mind off things. Your mother-daughter trip became a ritual, and every year after that, at Thanksgiving, you traveled together: Antelope Canyon in Arizona, Great Salt Lake in Utah, Yellowstone, New Orleans, Niagara Falls, Baton Rouge and the Mississippi River, Mount Rushmore. Then, for your sixteenth birthday, she took you to Rome and Venice.
“You were a good student, but you had a tendency to talk back, which nearly got you thrown out of Lowell High. Your father made a donation, and the school agreed to look the other way. At fifteen, you loved ice hockey and you cheered for the San José Sharks. Your mother suspected you had a crush on Bill Lindsay.”
“That’s ridiculous. Bill Lindsay was hideous. I was in love with Todd Harvey, and I wasseventeen! And how do you know all that?”
The waiter brought the bill in a leather check holder and placed it down in front of Thomas.
“I’ll get it. That was the agreement,” Manon said as she tried to grab it.
But Thomas had already discreetly handed his card to the waiter earlier. He signed the receipt and put his wallet away.
“I don’t know how you managed that little card trick,” she protested. “I didn’t see a thing.”
“My awkwardness is a great distraction,” Thomas replied as he stood up.
He stopped at the neighboring table and asked his father to make his own way home. Raymond sighed and disappeared.
Manon staggered through the parking lot. When they got to the car, she threw her keys to Thomas and told him her address.
Silence hung over them for a long time after they left Fort Mason. Finally, as the Prius made its way up California Street, she broke the spell.
“Why not, I guess,” she said. “Everyone experiences grief differently. If you still need your father to exist, then who am I to stand in your way? Besides, I’m not much of a drinker, but I’m quite drunk now. I’m sure I’ll wake up with a monumental migraine in the morning—I can already feel one coming on—and none of this will have ever happened.”
“That’s what I told myself, too, after the joint.”
“Right. So, how did you know all those things about me?”
They had just arrived in front of her building, and Thomas parked the car along the sidewalk. He turned around to grab the bag he’d left on the back seat and placed it on Manon’s lap.
“Here, you should have these.”
“What’s this?”
“A box of letters from your mother that my father kept. If you ever find the ones he wrote to her, I’d really love to have them. I wrote toyou too—an email explaining everything, but I didn’t send it. I was too afraid you’d never want to talk to me again. I copied it down on paper instead and left it at the bottom of the bag.”
Manon stared at Thomas, unable to speak a single word, incapable of understanding the emotions that arose in her as she prepared to say goodbye. She wanted to stay and hear him talk more about her childhood, and share more about her mother. She wanted to ask him a thousand questions, without any attitude or skepticism this time, even if there was nothing logical about any of this, just to hear his voice. She didn’t want to go home alone. But Thomas was quiet, so she got out of the Prius. After a moment, she came back.
“I just remembered, this is my car.”
“Of course.” Thomas apologized and returned her keys. “I’ll walk you to your door.”
“I can make it on my own,” she insisted as she made her way toward the building.
“I’m not so sure,” Thomas replied. He reached her just as she slid down the railing she was leaning against. He helped her up, waited for her vertigo to dissipate, and then supported her as she climbed the stoop.
They walked up the stairs to the next floor together, and Thomas waited for her to open her door.
“Do you think you can make it to your bed?”
