“Esty wants me to get a hybrid.” His hand dismissed the car while his heightened posture caressed it with pride.
“Would you believe, this was the car I always wanted as a kid?” Orchid said.
“Oh yeah? What else did you want as a kid?”
“Normal stuff. A phone, a boyfriend.” This fragile moment of meeting thrust into the forefront her memory of wanting parents to love her, unconditional acceptance, to belong to someone. But she wasn’t about to say all that.
Along the road, palm trees waved against the bluebell sky, blotting out the ever-present sun. Freeways sprouted double the normal lanes wide. Cars weaved into braided lines as if to prove the need for so much asphalt.
“Beautiful weather,” she commented, fiddling with her window, a little down to feel the temperate air, then back up because her uncle had turned on the air conditioning. She glanced at his neatly pressed golf shirt and khakis.
His devilish grin produced folds at the corners of his eyes that looked just like Dad’s. After all, he was only six years older than Dad was when he died.
“You’ll learn. Only tourists talk about the weather here.”
He pulled into a compact parking garage under a series of tightly tucked condos. They walked up carpeted stairs to where Esty awaited, baby in her arms.Insta-family. The hugs of strangers, the smells of broccoli steaming, and overly stretched faces was overwhelming.
“Aww, Quentin is adorable,” Orchid said, finding that crinkling her nose produced blubbery squeals. She retrieved a gift-wrapped package from her bag and placed it on the staircase ledge. “A little something for him.”
“Well, thanks. You must be exhausted. Come sit,” Esty insisted, scraping the chair out at the head of the kitchen table filled with a wooden salad bowl, terrines of grains and platters of vegetables.
Orchid washed her hands at the kitchen sink, then, feeling like an alien among her newfound family, she accepted the seat of honor.
“Did Zach tell you we’re vegan? Hope that’s okay,” Esty said, ladling scoops of food onto Orchid’s plate as if to make up for the family meals missed over the last dozen-plus years. “The quinoa is organic. I just baked the kale chips this morning. This soy-ginger sauce is for the veggies.”
“I’m vegetarian so this is great. Thanks for doing this. Especially when you must be so busy with the baby.” She pointed a chin at Quentin, who was nodding into an open-mouthed sleep, cradled in the hollow of Esty’s arm.
“We don’t mind,” Zach answered for his wife, face twisted with regret. “I feel terrible that we lost touch. I was still in school when your dad died. I called your aunt and she always said you were fine. It’s not an excuse. Just, you know, I’m sorry.”
Zach tilted his head expectantly at her, looking just like Dad, and then picked up his fork to slice the soft broccoli crowns. His words were sincere. He was only twenty-four when she’d been orphaned. And she could see he was trying now.
“Hey, it must’ve been hard on you, too. Dad dying so suddenly and all.”
He nodded over his plate, corners of his mouth pulling down the corners of his eyes. Esty placed a hand over his.
“Yeah, it was such a shock. Your mom, too, they were both so young. The last six years of his life, I was in school here in LA, so I didn’t see them much. But when I was growing up, your dad was the best. He’d drive me to school in his sports car, and talk with me about girls.”
Zach lifted his eyes to Esty’s. She squeezed his hand and then pursed her lips into a little air kiss. “What? You knew girls before me?”
“None,” he pronounced, returning her air-kiss.These two are adorable.
Zach spooned greens into the small space she’d managed to empty on her plate. “What do you remember of your parents?” he asked.
Orchid swallowed. This was the reason she kept everyone out, so she never had to answer these awkward questions. Maybe this case was different. Maybe family calls for a new level of honesty. So, she aimed for disclosure.
“It’s going to sound terrible, but not a whole lot. I remember vacationing at an amusement park, family holidays, and stuff like Dad helping me with math but having a hard time understanding how the basics weren’t totally obvious to me.”
“Yup, your dad was a math whiz. He couldn’t get how post-grad students didn’t understand multi-variable calculus, so you were in good company,” he said with the teasing tone of an admiring little brother. This tidbit of insight lightened the load of idolizing her dead parents, bringing her dad a little closer to human.
She dipped a shiny sugar snap pea into the sweet-tart sauce.
“But mostly,” she admitted, “when I think of them I remember their accident. Sometimes, I start with a happy memory, but then I always end with them dying. It makes me not want to think about them.”
Esty looked down at sleeping Quentin. “That’s really hard on a little kid to see something like that. On anyone, really.”
“Maybe I was always sensitive, but seeing the car crash . . . it seems like I can’t watch the news or see anything gruesome.”
Zach nodded. “You know what I always tell myself? That was a single instant in lives that were mostly filled with intellect and love and fun. And if your parents thought back on their lives, I doubt the accident is what they’d dwell on.”
