“I’d wake up every morning, alone. I’d try to stretch everything out as long as I could. My coffee. The reading of theBerkshire Eagle. I’d read every word. And as you probably know, very few people read every word of theBerkshire Eagle. I’d do all that, and it wouldbe only nine o’ clock, time to head in for my first class! I’d have twelve more hours to fill.”
“But you have work. You have friends! Where did all of your friends go? Don’t you still golf?” She knows her father was still golfing after Theresa died because every Sunday, when they did their family FaceTime, one of the girls would ask, “Done any golfing lately, Dad?” And the answer was always yes!
They thought he was doing okay, because he was golfing.
Calvin pauses to drink from his beer cup. “I have friends. Yes, yes, of course I do. I still golf. But friends and golfing don’t fill every minute, especially when your friends have their spouses.” She’s quiet, taking this in, and eventually Calvin continues. “I just...” He trails off. He seems like he’s thinking about what to say next. “Life was always so busy and full, with you girls, and then when you went off into your own lives, we were busy then too. Working still, and traveling, you know. Then your mom got sick, and there was no time to be lonely because there were appointments and treatments to arrange and drive to, and meals to cook, and medications to track. So many medications, they were practically a full-time job. I never thought of loneliness as a real affliction before. I suppose I should have, but I didn’t. I thought of it as a choice. Find something to do to fill your time! I would have told a friend in my position: Volunteer! Work more! Work less! Go to the movies! Get a dog, get a gerbil, learn a language. Get something!”
“But it’s not that easy,” says Jordan. She’s beginning to understand.
“It’s not that easy at all. You can do all of those things, and there are still so many hours in the day to fill.” He grows quiet and pensive. “Still so many hours, and days, and weeks. Just sitting there empty, staring at you.”
Then, he explains, along came Kara.
(Along came a spider, thinks Jordan.)
When they bumped into each other at the Apple Squeeze, Calvin had been so happy to see her. She’d been a part of the worst time of his life, but at the same time she felt like a link to an era when he’d been okay, because even though Theresa was so sick she was still alive, she was still there. They chatted for, oh, maybe fifteen minutes or so, and then they’d exchanged phone numbers. Kara had suggested that they do this, and it was Kara who then texted him to see if he wanted to meet for a drink at Brava.
“And the rest...”
“Is history?” says Jordan.
“The rest happened quickly, is what I was going to say. I’ll spare you the details.”
“Thank you,” says Jordan. “I accept your sparing.” Her beer is gone, and her father’s beer is too. They’re almost done with their lobster rolls. Only the dregs of the chowder remain.
“I wanted you to hear all of this from me. You can be upset with me, you and your sisters. That’s your right. If I were in your position I’d be upset with me too. I just want you to understand.”
Jordan nods.
“When you’re staring down the road of the rest of your life, and you don’t know how long or short that road is going to be, and someone appears who you think you might be able to love, not in the same way you loved before, but in a new and different way, and the afternoons no longer seem endless, and there’s someone to come home to, or someone to come home to you, well, then, you don’t take that person lightly. You learn how to treasure that person. Even if it’s not the same person you thought you’d be treasuring forever.”
Jordan sits with this and, okay, it starts to make sense to her, from her father’s point of view, that it’s possible to love two people consecutively, especially if you are loving each in a different way. It’spossible to think everything good leaked out of your heart and then to discover that the fissure sealed itself up and you can grow more because love is a renewable resource. It’s possible to have hope.
“Wow,” she says finally. It might just be beautiful, everything Calvin has just said. Still, something isn’t clicking. “But Kara...” she says. She can’t form the rest of the sentence because she’s not sure what she wants to ask, or, more accurately, how to ask it.
But her father knows. Father knows best. “What’s in it for her?” Calvin supplies. Yes. That’s exactly the question. Jordan nods slowly. “I’ve asked myself that many times. I’ve asked her that.”
“You have?”
“Of course. Any sane person would. Someone with her whole life ahead of her, and an old guy like me...”
“Oh, Dad. You know you’re young for being old.” This is true; she’s not merely flattering him. He’s a very young sixty-nine-year-old. But still, he’s sixty-nine. So the question is a fair one. “But, yeah. I guess I’m wondering that. What is in it for Kara? Not to be indelicate but she’s still working, right? This isn’t a Logan Roy situation, where you sort of see why the young ladies...”
“Who’s Logan Roy?”
“The really rich guy onSuccession,” she explains. “The patriarch.”
“Ah,” he says. “What’sSuccession?”
“Never mind,” she says, waving her hand at him. “If you don’t know that much, you’re hopeless.”
He nods as if to sayfair enough. “I suppose,” says Calvin, “if you really want to know the answer to that question you’ll have to ask Kara directly.”
“Yeah?” Jordan isn’t sure if he’s kidding or not.
“Kara knows that while I’m her second husband, I probably won’t be her last. Maybe not even her best.” He smiles wryly.
“Dad!” cries Jordan, shocked. “Don’t say that.”
