“That’s okay,” he said, and she was crying now, her forehead on his shoulder. He brushed hair from her face, rubbed her back, and his own tears came then. “I miss her, too. And it’s okay to be sad. It’s good. It means Mom was special to you. It means she was a good mom.”
Whit let them both cry for a moment, then asked the question that had been bothering him in vague and not-so-vague ways for months.
“Did Merritt ever make you sad about Mom?”
Why had he waited so long to state it plainly? Was he a terrible father?
Annie sniffed and looked at him. She really thought about her answer, and he felt an unexpected surge of pride in her then.
“Um,” she started, still thinking carefully, “I don’t know.”
“It’s probably kind of hard to see your dad with someone who isn’t Mom. Right?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. But I like her, too.”
“And that’s confusing.”
She gave a single hearty nod, and then her face twisted once again.
“And now she’s gone?”
Her voice went up at the end, and the hope he heard in the question—hope that she was mistaken—nearly broke him. Now they werebothgone.
“She’s not gone,” Whit said, his voice quavering. “She’s just... we’re just not together anymore. And it’s no one’s fault. It’s just over now.”
Annie nodded again, but he could see that she was not finished feeling. She pulled her plate back toward her and ate, somberly and thoughtfully, and Whit wasthisclose to calling Evie and pleading with her to come back right that instant. He probably would have done it, too, except that Christmas was in less than two weeks (God help him), and he had (idiotically) agreed to their father’s absurd, bachelor-in-his-early-sixties plan to spend the holidays in the Cayman Islands. Evie would be there, of course, and another trip to Whelk Harbor was simply too much to ask when he and Annie would be seeing her again so soon.
At drop-off, he told her, “I love you more than ice cream.”
“I know,” was her only response.
When Joan called later that day, she was enthusiastic and warm and all the other qualities Whit knew he did not deserve to be met with. “How are you? How’s Annie? How was your Thanksgiving?”
Whit answered the latter two questions with the same canned responses he would have used with Wet-Looking Curly Hair Woman and Woman with the Extensive Neck Scarf Collection at Annie’s school. He hardly knew what he was saying, but Joan seemed satisfied, as well as blithely unaware that he had avoided the first question—how are you?—entirely.
“That’s great,” she said, “that’s really great. Well, I’m sure you know why I’m calling. Just wanted to check in on how things are going. We’re about to close up shop for the holidays, and you know how publishing is—everyone will go radio silent until at least a week after the New Year. Then that January deadline is going to comefast.”
“Mm-hmm, time flies,” Whit said, wondering if he sounded like a man who was speaking from the depths of despair while lying prone on the floor of his bedroom.
Joan let out a fake laugh, obviously filling the silence. Whit willed himself to speak.
“It’s—it’s good, yeah. It’s good. It’s really close to being finished. I think late January should be no problem.”
What the fuck, you moron?
“What about January15? That’s the deadline, on paper I mean.”
“January15, no problem.”
What the fuck?!
“Oh, that’s great. That is so good to hear.”
Joan’s relief was palpable. And worse, it threw Whit’s miseryinto sharp contrast. He was a disaster. He was doomed, and a damned liar.
Joan hung up shortly after, as if she were trying to escape before the people from a television prank show could bang on her office door and say,Psych! Whit Longacre is a pathetic joke, and you should be embarrassed for believing in him!
Whit stayed there on the floor, half-dozing, for a full hour more, only getting up when the cold wood had chilled him enough to make a batch of hot tea an absolute necessity. It was only after the kettle was boiling that he remembered he needed just enough water for one cup.
