His interruption has to be one of the kindest things he’s ever done for me. I doubt it was intentional, but the timing couldn’t be better. All eyes go to him.
“John Doe?” I say.
“Yes.”
“A real person?”
“Of course he’s real. Would I mention him if he wasn’t? What is wrong with you? Can you not hear me?”
I wither.
But Anne is smiling at him, indulgent. “Do you remember the case, Daddy?”
His silver brows come together. “Of course I remember the case. I told you. It was the estate.”
“Elizabeth’s?” I whisper, because withering under the press of the past is a luxury I can’t afford. My gut says we’re getting somewhere here.
He doesn’t answer.
“Daddy?” Anne invites.
With a long-suffering sigh, he puts down his fork and looks at her. “It’s about robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Brows up, he turns to Joy and is off on a wave of lucidity. “Know that one? It goes back to the Reformation. They were building two churches, St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London. To pay for the building, there was the Peter tax and the Paul tax. People in London would’ve had to pay two taxes, one for each church. But they couldn’t afford that. So they just paid for the one near them. They didn’t pay Peter in order to pay Paul. Robbed Peter to pay Paul. Took from Peter to pay Paul.”
“That’s a great story,” Anne says because he’s told it so well. I wait for her to ask Dad what it means in the current context. When she doesn’t, I do.
“And?” I coax gently.
Eyeing me in annoyance, he turns his good hand one way, then the other. “Peter. Paul.” He repeats, hand and voice. “Peter. Paul.”
“But how does it relate to what we’re talking about?”
He glares. “What’re we talking about?”
“Elizabeth’s estate.”
He stills. “Are you trying to trap me?”
“No, of course not, I’m just confused.”
He sputters a laugh. “You’reconfused. That’s a good one.”
The parable has to apply. My father was never one to quote scripture to us, was never religious at all. He knew history. Maybe that’s where the Peter-Paul story came from. But it has to relate to Elizabeth. Same with John Doe.
I want to run this by Jack.
But we’re barely done with the lobster when Anne is corralling us to go to Gendy’s for ice cream, and once she mentions it, Joy forgets to be miffed about the birthmark. We pile into Bill’s pickup, Dad up front with him and we three women shoulder to shoulder in the extended cab.
Joy is beside herself with excitement, whispering to the side, “Omigod, Mom, I’ve always wanted to ride in a pickup.” She touches the roof, the carpeting, the leather seat. “Who knew it was so gorgeous?”
“Guzzles gas,” I whisper back.
“Well, Igetthat, but it’s still cool.”
She also gives this new rendition of the rambling white house that is Gendy Scoops a pass on not being a nut-free facility, and, citing the need for historical reference, orders the traditional banana split after seeing another come through the takeout window. To look at her eating it, you’d think she’d never had ice cream before. But then, it isn’t only ice cream. It’s banana. And one scoop each of Heath bar crunch, cookies and cream, and mint chocolate chip, her three slightly nontraditional choices. And caramel sauce andcrushed peanuts. And whipped cream. And a cherry. She eats the whole thing herself, refusing to give me more than a taste.
Dad is preoccupied eating a single scoop of strawberry ice cream with his plastic spoon, one engrossed bite at a time.
Anne and Bill share a hot fudge sundae.
