“But you hated teaching me how to drive.” He recalled at one point his father took to bringing a thermos of whiskey around on their practice sessions just to manage the stress.
“That should tell you how dire the straits are.”
Arthur didn’t know what to say, but for some reason, he was having to hold in a laugh. The idea of his father teaching some acne-ridden fifteen-year-old to drive, sitting in the passenger seat with barely concealed rage and frustration, was hilarious to him. If a little sad.
Just then, a group of young boys rode by on bikes laughing.
“Do you wish you hadn’t waited so long to do it? To travel, I mean? Do all the parks and everything?”
Arthur thought back. If these weren’t his parents’ golden years, then when were they? When he’d come home from college to visit, his mom eagerly washing the laundry and dad enlisting him in chores? The years when they’d sit around the house doing puzzles together and working in the yard? He’d always wondered why they didn’t do…more. He thought they must be bored. Now he was starting to see that having each other, and him, was all they had ever really needed.
“Arthur, I can honestly say I don’t regret a single thing,” Neal said.
Arthur felt his throat tighten up. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of doing what you have to do, of doing work that matters. No matter what it pays.”
“Look who’s talking,” his dad said, almost as if…as if he was proud of his son.
In another moment, Arthur would be sobbing and releasing thirty years of pent-up emotion. But he still had something even more pressing weighing on his brain, on his heart.
“What do I do, Dad? If I walk away from this, I lose almost everything we’ve saved. If I don’t, I’ll lose Wren.”
“I don’t know. I’m just an old man with an achy back. But we’ve always loved her. And you’ve always loved her. You just gotta decide for yourself if she’s worth fighting for.”
Arthur didn’t have to think about that. He knew without a doubt that she was.
“My offer still stands, you know.”
“Offer?”
“A loan. No strings attached. If you still want the house, I’ll help with the costs. If you don’t want the house, you can use it to get back on your feet.”
“I couldn’t. You just said you’re going broke.”
“Not as broke as you.”
Arthur couldn’t suppress his smile at that one.
But, no. He still wanted to do this on his own. And he knew just how to start. But before he could, another car pulled into the driveway, and he knew by the puffy hair exactly who it was before she even stepped out: Linda Kellerman.
22
Ten years earlier
They lay there in thehazy afterglow, squished next to each other on the wafer-thin mattress in Wren’s dorm. The only light in the room was the glow of her computer screensaver, strange trippy shapes in vibrant purples and greens dancing across the monitor.
“That was fun,” Arthur said.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Did you…Was it also fun for you?”
“Absolutely mind-blowing. I may never take another lover.”
It had been playfully sarcastic at the time but would eventually come true.
“I get it,” Arthur said. “Do you want me to go, or…?”
“Just relax, dude,” she said.
