The Favorite Daughter

by Patti Callahan Henry

  One place she’d never been; one job she’d never been assigned from any magazine—Ireland. And always her dad asked, “Ireland yet?” And she would tell him, “No, Dad, the next one is Argentina.” Or it could have been California or Idaho or Maine. They weren’t always exotic locales, but they were continuously fascinating.

  Colleen stepped into her brother’s Jeep and drove another few miles before pulling into the family home, up the long pebble driveway with the overgrown azaleas crowding the edges. She hadn’t seen them in bloom in years. If pressed, she couldn’t remember the colors of the blossoms.

  The front of the one-story white brick house faced the street and stretched out sunbathing on the wide green lawn where ancient oak trees spread their limbs like a crocheted blanket across the sky. Spanish moss hung from those trees, catching and holding on to the summer light, hoarding it for the coming fall.

  The driveway curved from the road to one side of the house between the house and detached garage. In that space, Colleen parked the Jeep and stared directly into the backyard, where the sloping green lawn rushed toward the river. A dilapidated tree fort clung to the largest oak with the last of its rusted nails. The back of the house possessed a small screened-in porch on the left side and to the right a set of three stairs and small concrete porch covered by a striped blue awning where a screen door opened to the kitchen.

  Colleen absorbed all of this in the time it took to blink twice, and then it was the tree house her gaze sought by instinct. Nestled between the branches of an old oak, the tree house was tilted, half-drunk. The roof had long ago collapsed. Dad had once mentioned fixing it up, bringing it back for the nieces, but nothing had happened except that the tree reached higher, and the house inside of it had warped with the growth. Colleen turned away, feeling the swish-wash of sorrow for all that was lost. Then her gaze found the dock of her memories and dreams, hovering over the pewter water.

  She found herself at the end of the dock before she knew she’d decided to walk that way, sitting with bare feet dangling and her red high-tops by her side. A midday shower threatened in the gray clouds that blurred the horizon like a flock of black birds. The water crested and fell to the rhythm of an outgoing tide. It was all so familiar, so achingly familiar. Would it always be this way for her dad or would even this place become strange, just another dock, another river, another tide? Things were special in their specificity to the soul, this much she knew.

  This was where her childhood had taken place, where her dad had taught her to throw the shrimp net and fish with live bait. This was where she’d experienced her first kiss, where her mother had told stories of mermaids and sea creatures that Colleen believed in longer than she believed in Santa Claus. This was where Walter had proposed . . .

  With a jolt, she stood and wrapped her arms around her belly for protection, as if the memory could punch her.

  * * *

  • • •

  Walter stood at the far end of the dock, his hair awash in twilight and a big smile on his face. Colleen walked toward him, wondering how she’d been so lucky as to love a man like him. Sure, she’d had her fair share of good-looking and wonderfully goofy boys in high school and college, also experiencing heartbreak and angst that echoed a Taylor Swift song, but Walter was in a category all his own: both funny and sincere, both manly and sensitive. They’d met at a fund-raiser for a museum in Savannah and had barely left each other’s side during the six months they’d been dating; an invisible cord connected them.

  She’d heard about love at first sight, of course. She’d read about it. But she hadn’t believed in it until Walter. They didn’t fight. They didn’t disagree on anything that caused more than a moment’s pause—he didn’t like avocados and she put them on everything; she despised salmon and he knew twenty-five ways to cook it. But even those small things had made them laugh. “Let’s eat avocado and salmon every night to prove our love,” he’d once said.

  That evening as she walked toward him on the dock, Colleen felt her heart quicken. Something was different—his shoulders set back and a determined smile on his face as if he were posing for a photograph. When she reached him, he took her in his arms. “This is your favorite place in the world, right?” he said.

  Look how well he already knew her.

  “Yes,” she said and kissed him. “Here, and the pub.”

  Then he dropped to one knee as if she’d written a childhood play about a romantic proposal, and he’d read it. “You are the woman for me, Lena Donohue. I love you, and you alone. I never dreamed I’d meet someone like you. All the days I have, I want to spend them with you. Will you please spend the rest of your life with me?” Then he handed her a perfectly gorgeous aquamarine ring, square cut with tiny diamonds surrounding it because somewhere along the way she had casually mentioned that she didn’t want a big diamond and adored aquamarines.

  “We will stay here in this magical land, create our own little family. You won’t have to leave your river, and I will never leave you.”

  Colleen dropped to her knees also. They would always be a team, just like her mother and dad: equals. And it would begin with her in front of him, not looking down at him. The sun set just as she said yes. He’d timed it perfectly. And somewhere in the yard, Mother took the photo that Walter had asked her to snap at just the right moment.

  It was a photo Colleen had had printed the next day and placed in a silver frame to set on her bedside table. On the wedding day, after she’d returned to the house to grab the suitcase she’d packed for their honeymoon to Napa Valley, she’d thrown that picture into the river.

  Chapter Seven

  Memory, once waked, will play the tyrant.

  C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

  “Lena.” Her dad’s voice called out and Colleen turned to smile as he headed toward her. He appeared as he always had—robust and on fire, his cheeks ruddy and his grin wide, his clothes loose and his steps longer than his short legs gave the impression they could be.

  He looks the same. That was Colleen’s first thought. There wasn’t anything different about him. Shane was wrong and he’d tricked her into coming there with some cockamamie story about Dad’s mind fading.

  Short and round, the shape of him. His thick hair had thinned hardly at all, still dark and wavy, though now infused with silver. He ran his hands through it and reached Colleen in a few steps. His green eyes—so green they almost seemed painted on, gazed at her. He threw his arms around her and held her fast. He was only a few inches taller than Colleen, and her face rested on his shoulder. “What are you doing here, my Lena?”

  “You didn’t know?” she asked. “Shane didn’t tell you I was coming for a few weeks?” She stepped back, holding his hands.

  “Yes! Yes.” Dad nodded and hugged her again. “I’ve been working on the garden and just totally forgot. Now don’t you go thinking that one little forgetting means that quack of a doctor was right. Of course I remembered you were coming. I’ve been counting the days.”

  “I only decided yesterday.”

  “Then I counted one day.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re staying here, right? Not some hotel like last Christmas?”

  That was a good sign. He remembered that at Christmas she’d stayed in the creaky old bed-and-breakfast—Auntie Mae’s—on Main Street. The one with mildew in the shower and the snoring man in the next room and the breakfast of packaged biscuits only partially warmed. She’d stayed there, and tolerated it, because Hallie and Walter and their adorable girls had decided it was the Christmas to let Santa visit Grandy’s house. They’d coordinated their visits so that Colleen didn’t go to the house until they’d left for their own home for a rest and naps. Colleen had carefully stepped over the children’s new dolls and toys and tutus they’d left for their return that night, and enjoyed the afternoon with her brother and dad.

  “Nope, no hotel for me, Dad. I’m staying here.”


  How could he look so normal while plaque grew over his brain neurons? She had the impulse to shake his head, loosen the tangles. How could they be standing on the back lawn with the river flowing by and the sun moving toward the horizon and far off a seagull crying out while something interrupted the connections in Gavin Donohue’s brain?

  “Dad.” Colleen touched his cheek. “We’re going to find a way to stop this.”

  “Stop what?” He looked out to the river as if something were arriving that he could not see—a storm or a ship.

  “Whatever is happening, we won’t let it. And I’m so happy to be here, but I’m also starving.” She smiled at him. “Airplane peanuts didn’t quite do the trick.” She thought of her beer, sitting at the pub, with only a sip taken from it.

  “Well, my little lark, then we must go to the grocery because the cupboard is bare. I was going to eat at the pub myself.”

  “Let’s go inside and see if there’s anything I can rustle up.” She wanted him to herself for a little while even if she hadn’t rustled up anything in longer than she could remember. She wanted to assess the situation without Shane or Hallie standing by with their mournful expressions, with their know-it-all facts about a relentless disease. She looped her arm through her dad’s and kissed his round cheek.

  “You can surely try.” He fell into step beside her.

  Halfway to the house, their feet denting the soft summer grass and the world quiet, he faced his daughter. “I know you came here because Shane and Hallie guilted you into coming, what with my diagnosis. But you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be. They’re wrong about it all. I just have a head too full of too much and sometimes I forget things.”

  “I want to be here, Dad.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You don’t. I know that. You haven’t wanted to be here since that terrible day. I understand. I wish it was different.” He paused and stared at the dome of sky. The thunderheads that had been building at the horizon had arrived and were starting to sprinkle warm raindrops. Then he gazed back to her, his eyes soft. “I’ve wished for you to return, but not this way. Not because something might be wrong with me. I want you here of your own desire.”

  “Dad.” She took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. “I am here because I want to see you. If the doctors are wrong, or the doctors are right, we’ll find out. But I’m here for you!” She tugged at him. “Let’s get out of the rain.”

  As they entered the house, the warmth of her childhood home embraced her. A fragrance, one she’d never been able to label, sifted around her. Toast with butter, she’d once told Hallie. No, Hallie had said, clean laundry. Salt water. Soil. Whatever it was, the elements combined into an aroma both primal and Donohue.

  A loud clap of thunder, a shuddering of the world outside, and both Colleen and her dad jumped at the sound. Fat raindrops fell onto the wide windows and ran down to dimple the view outside. “We just made it.” Her dad pressed his hand against the window. “This house has always protected us.”

  Colleen stood next to him. “Dad, it’s a great house. And a great home.”

  His gaze fell to hers. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I should come more often. I love it here. The way the doors creak and the metal roof sings in the rain. I love the way the record player still roosts in the kitchen with a pile of LPs. I love the way the attic fan whirs me to sleep. I love . . .”

  Her dad smiled, but sadly, as if his mouth wanted to both grin and frown. “You must miss it. I think of that often. How very much you must miss it. If I’d have left—if I’d ever left this world we built from scratch, I think a part of me would have died.”

  “But, Dad, you didn’t grow up here. You set off and built your own life. You came here—you and Mother—and started your lives. Bought the pub. Had a family. It didn’t kill you to move from Richmond. It won’t kill me to build a new life also.”

  “I had to leave, Colleen. You didn’t.”

  “You had to?” Her mind raced in tangles of its own, reaching for something new it didn’t yet understand, something unfamiliar.

  “As the Irish say, if there is a way into the wood, there is a way out.”

  “Dad.” She said his name on an exhale. “Will you ever stop saying that? Saying, ‘As the Irish say.’”

  “I hope not.”

  And the hope, so simply stated, was suddenly as important as any wish uttered in that small piney kitchen with the electric stove and the white-painted cabinets and the childhood initials etched with a pocketknife into the wooden table, initials that had earned each of them a time-out in their rooms.

  Colleen tamped down the sadness that could quickly turn to grief and opened the old refrigerator—a white Kenmore with magnets of every variety stuck to its door. The anthropology of the family could be charted in those magnets: inspirational quotes from her mother’s collection; Irish shamrocks and leprechauns; names and phone numbers of house services. Then there were the faded photos of their childhood faces in class pictures and on outdoor excursions. Brighter photos of Rose and Sadie. Attached behind the magnets were notices, notes and invitations to parties and weddings that had long since passed. “Dad,” she said, “we could probably take some of these down.”

  “They keep me company,” he said with a grin. “I like to see all those names and pictures up there.”

  “That’s sweet.” She peered inside, hoping to find enough to assemble a small lunch, and instead found a refrigerator fully stocked. “Dad!” She turned to him. “You said there wasn’t any food.”

  “I did?” He glanced inside.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Well, looks like Ms. Boone has been here.”

  “Ms. Boone?” Colleen grabbed a white butcher’s-paper package marked “Turkey” and a bag of sliced Swiss cheese. Mustard. Mayonnaise. Lettuce. Tomato. She placed them all on the dark green linoleum counter that hadn’t been changed since the day her parents had moved in.

  “You know, the housekeeper,” he said and went to the cupboard to pull down a loaf of white bread and hand it to Colleen.

  “I don’t think I’ve met her. Is she new?”

  He was quiet for a moment, staring at the rain streaking down the windowpane. “I think so.” Then he turned to Colleen and fear passed over his face. “I bought the groceries yesterday. Or was it the day before? With Shane. In anticipation of your arrival. I totally forgot. Ms. Boone has been gone for a while now.”

  A nervous thrumming filled Colleen’s chest. He’d forgotten, but then he’d remembered that he forgot. “You have all my favorite things. Thanks, Dad.”

  She busied herself. Toast the bread. Spread a thin line of Duke’s mayonnaise and a thin one of mustard. Lick the mustard off her fingers. Wipe the tomato juice from the counter. Add a tomato slice. Then his voice asked, “Do you have a man in your life?” He took a seat at the kitchen table. “Anyone you love?”

  “No.” Colleen set the sandwiches on her mother’s flowered thin-china plates. If you are going to have fancy plates, you must use them, Mother used to say.

  “I worry about you, little lark.” Her dad placed a napkin on his lap. “I want you to love someone. To really love.”

  “I have loads of love, Dad. I love you. I love Shane. I love life and my job and adventure . . . I have friends in New York, and I love them, too.”

  “And you love your sister.” He leaned forward and placed both hands on the table. “I know you do.”

  “Oh, Dad.”

  He took his sandwich in both hands and held it, but spoke before taking the first bite. “Love isn’t to be parsed out, Lena. It is to be spread wide. When a heart is damaged, it only hurts more to shut it down.”

  “What Hallie did was more than damage—it was betrayal.”

  “I know about betrayal.” Then he dropped his sandwich onto the plate and stoo
d. “And I know about forgiveness. Wait here.”

  “What?” Colleen stood.

  “Hold on,” he called from the living room and moments later appeared with a framed photo in his hands. “This”—he handed it to her—“is more important than any man. No matter who was engaged to him first. No matter anything at all.”

  Colleen took the wooden frame, upside down in his hands, and turned it right side up. There they were: Colleen and Hallie at six and seven years old. They’d never been the kind of sisters that others said looked alike—in fact, they were opposites in many ways. Colleen with her dirty blond, unruly curly hair. Hallie with her white blond hair that was so straight it might have been ironed every morning by their mother, just like her dad’s shirts. Colleen with the heart-shaped chin and Hallie’s squared off with dimples. Hallie with brown eyes, and Colleen’s like their dad’s—green and deep set and almond shaped. In this photo, they were facing the camera laughing with their mouths open and their heads thrown back. A burst of sunlight behind them, a setting sun, was caught in the camera lens.

  “Christmas Eve,” Colleen said.

  “I think so. Your mother knew where and when every photo was taken. I only know that it shows love. A lot of it. And you can find it again. I believe that.”

  “Dad.” Colleen exhaled and placed the frame on the kitchen table. “I remember. I can even tell you what we were doing that night—putting food out for the reindeer on the dock, leaving cookies, too. We laughed because you told us that Santa would be using leprechauns that year to deliver the presents. I remember it all, Dad. But it doesn’t change what happened after.”

  “Yes, it does. Every memory changes what happens now and later.” His sandwich was long forgotten. “If it’s true what the doctors say, if it’s true that I will lose my memories to some plaque in my brain, I know this—memories influence everything. And what am I without them? I have no idea. But yours—your memories, my little lark, use the good ones.”