by Davis Bunn
The Weber was set up at the garden’s far end. It had been shifted there from the rear veranda after Travis had set a corner of the roof on fire.
Daniel was lighting the charcoal when Ricki’s friend walked over. As he feared, it was none other than the woman from the cemetery. “Good evening, Stella.”
“Surprise.” She looked equally uncomfortable. “If it helps, I didn’t know you were coming until ten minutes ago. When Ricki told me your name, I half-hoped there were two Daniels.”
“No such luck.”
She tested a smile. “She described you, and I replied that I had an urgent need to be somewhere else. Ricki basically barred the door with her body.”
Daniel found himself liking the woman. “Ricki is a wonderful person. But she tends to insert herself where she’s not wanted. Forcefully.”
Anywhere but LA, Stella Dalton would be classed as a remarkably beautiful woman. Raven hair fell in abundant waves over bare shoulders. Her arms and wrists were strong in the manner of a professional tennis player, her long legs ending in sandals with little coral flowers over the toes. Her dress had a matching design, as did her amber necklace. Her eyes were either blue or violet, Daniel couldn’t tell in the dusk. She was strong, and she was resilient, and the hollow void at the center of her gaze spoke to him.
She watched him fan the coals. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. Again.”
“Likewise.”
Stella’s daughter then raced up and demanded, “Where’s Goldie?”
“Not here.”
Stella said, “Be polite and say good evening, Mr. Riffkin.”
“Daniel,” he corrected.
Amber sketched a wave. “Why didn’t you bring your dog?”
“Chloe has a cat named Shah. A long-hair mix, white with a touch of cinnamon and the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen.”
Stella said, “She sounds beautiful.”
The fire was going well now, so he shut the top to let it burn down. “Shah is a he, and he is a lover and a fighter.”
Chloe and Nicole walked up, both carrying plates, one of steaks and the other of vegetables. Chloe said, “About once a week, we get a neighbor who comes by with either a box of little part-white kitties or a cat who’s been torn to shreds. You should see Daddy play the innocent.”
Amber said, “Cool.”
Daniel said, “Nicole, this is Stella and her daughter, Amber. We met earlier today.”
His niece almost dropped the plate. “Wait. What?”
Amber said, “So Goldie and Shah, they don’t get along?”
“The one time Daniel brought her over, Shah basically decided she wanted to have Goldie for breakfast,” Chloe said.
“Goldie said no thanks and set off for Long Beach,” Daniel said. “I chased her for a week.”
Nicole said, “This is the Stella and Amber?”
Amber asked, “Where’s your kittie now?”
“Under my bed,” Chloe replied. “Shah doesn’t like visitors. He isn’t happy unless he’s the center of attention.”
Stella pointed with her wineglass at Nicole and asked Daniel, “Your niece knows?”
Chloe asked, “What am I missing here?”
Nicole said, “You won’t believe it.”
“Try me,” Chloe said.
Stella said, “I take that as a big affirmative.”
Amber asked, “What is everybody talking about?”
CHAPTER 9
They dined outdoors in the lovely September night, the coastal wind gentled by the valley walls separating their neighborhood from Miramar. They sat around a soapstone table on cast-iron legs that Ricki had found at a junk shop and lovingly restored. The dinner was a success because of Amber. At eleven years old, she was small for her age, a happy child who watched everything with a wide-eyed eagerness that Daniel found touching.
Chloe was one of the most stunningly beautiful young women Daniel had ever met, this from a former inhabitant of a city that drew beauty like moths to a flame. Chloe had her father’s height and her mother’s sharp features. At nearly sixteen, she topped six feet. But where both her parents had the strength and solidity of professional athletes, Chloe possessed a winsome grace that was all her very own.
And something more.
Ever since the first time they met, Daniel wondered if there was some island strain to her bloodline. Not Caribbean. Polynesian or Maori or Fijian. Daniel had spent time out there in his late teens and early twenties, island hopping and working as a bartender or waiter or whatever. He loved the water-bound world and had promised he would someday return. Chloe possessed an internal fire that reminded him of the natives, especially those not yet tamed by the modern world. High cheekbones tilted her almond-shaped eyes, which possessed a dark golden tint, like a volcano at midnight.
When Chloe started in on her normal tirade of being imprisoned in Miramar, Amber came back with, “I don’t understand you.”
“You’re young,” Chloe said. “Give it time.”
“Chloe,” Ricki said, suddenly tired.
“What.”
“Give it a rest. For once. Please.”
Amber asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“Los Angeles. Tomorrow.”
Nicole spoke for the first time since they had seated themselves. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nicole directed her words at her plate. “LA is a great place for people who want to be somebody else. The truth gets ground down to dust. Telling lies is fine, as long as you make people believe you.”
Chloe crossed her arms and huffed, “Being somebody else is fine by me.”
Nicole kept her gaze on her plate and did not respond.
“But I don’t understand.” Amber’s gaze stayed steady on Chloe. “Miramar is great.”
“Thank you, honey,” Ricki said. “You’re welcome here any time.”
Chloe glared across the table at Nicole. “I don’t understand either. You left LA for Miramar?”
Seeing his niece go small and sad, like she did at that moment, made Daniel’s chest ache. “I lived in LA for years. I’d say Nicole has the place down cold.”
“Cold is right,” Travis said.
Amber asked Daniel, “You like Miramar, don’t you?”
“I love it. This place is home.”
“Not for me.” Chloe’s face pinched up tight. “LA would suit me just fine.”
“Finish school,” Travis said. “Get your grades up so UCLA will take you. Then we’ll see.”
“I am not spending three more years caged in Miramar!”
“That’s enough, girl!”
“No!” She sprang, cat-like, up and away from her table so fast she frightened Amber. “I’ve had it with you and this place!”
Ricki stabbed the air between them. “Go to your room!”
But Chloe was already moving. “I hate you! And I’m running away!”
CHAPTER 10
Routines defined Daniel’s life. They maintained the boundaries that kept him safe. Yet the next morning, for the first time in years, Daniel overslept.
When he opened his eyes and glanced at the bedside clock, Daniel actually did not believe the numbers. He could not remember the last time he had slept until ten-thirty. Certainly not since becoming sober. But after the previous day’s events, he had tossed and turned for hours. Finally, at one in the morning, he had stepped outside and spent over an hour seated by the rear hedge, staring at the night, listening to the sea below.
Now Daniel rose and dressed and entered the main house to discover Nicole seated on a counter stool. An empty cereal bowl rested beside her phone. His greeting was halted by the sight of her form, made small by whatever she read on her screen.
Goldie lay stretched out by the stool. Normally when Daniel appeared in the morning, she danced. The only time his dog appeared morose was when Daniel refused to let her go out with him on his rare nights away. Whenever he forgot and left the bed
room door open, Daniel woke up wearing a Labradoodle helmet. But this morning, as Daniel approached the kitchen, the only parts of Goldie that moved were her eyes.
Daniel had no idea what to do or say. He wanted to reach out and hold Nicole, offer the hurting girl a share of his own strength. But it seemed like a great yawning gap existed between them, far too wide for his arms to reach across. So he retreated into the next part of his morning routine. “Would you like a coffee?”
She gave a fractional nod, still not having looked at him.
Daniel ground coffee and poured milk into the heating pitcher. He brought out two mugs and set them on the metal counter and tapped in the coffee and twisted the handles and punched the buttons. He steamed the milk as the coffee dripped through. He did his best to give Nicole space, even when he saw a tear slide down her cheek. He had never felt so much a stranger to his niece as then.
He tamped the pitcher on the stone countertop, then used the flat wooden ladle to push it into the mug. “I usually take my first cup in the garden. Would you like to join me?”
In response, Nicole slid off her stool and followed him across the living room.
The fog had returned with the dawn. This often happened in the early spring, when the winter winds breathed their last. Mornings like this, it was hard to believe the summer heat would ever arrive, as if the world told fables no one believed anymore. Daniel had always loved how the central coast was truly an in-between land. On days when the arid winds blew off California’s high desert, Miramar was linked by sunlight and easterly fires to Southern California. Temperatures could soar fifty degrees between dawn and ten o’clock.
Today was different. A San Francisco-style light drifted in gentle waves with the mist, a feather-like whisper of a world that remained just out of reach. Homes lining the first hills were high enough to look down on the fog, and they cost twice as much as here. Most people disliked how their view was dependent upon the wind. But Daniel had always loved the way the mist held him here, tight as a lover’s embrace. He hit the switch and lit the gas firepit, then led Nicole through the glass-fronted office and into the backyard.
Metal chairs made a half ring around the firepit. Daniel placed his cup on the firepit’s stone rim and went back for two sets of cushions. He couldn’t leave them out at night because they’d be drenched by dawn. As he settled two into Nicole’s chair, the dog came out and nuzzled her way under Nicole’s free hand, which was another astonishment. Goldie hated how the mist clung to her pelt. Daniel had always considered her a true California dog, happiest when the sun blazed and the ocean winds blew. Daniel asked, “Would you like a blanket?”
“No, thank you.” It was the first time she had spoken that morning. When she was seated, Goldie wedged her head under Nicole’s legs and just lay there on the grass. Normally on such wet days she had to be prodded outside to pee.
Nicole drank her coffee in small tentative sips. All the while, she kept a tight grip on her phone. It buzzed twice while she drank. Both times, whatever it was she read caused her face to crimp up tight.
Daniel waited until she set her cup on the firepit’s rim to ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”
She gestured to the mist-clad morning with the hand holding her phone. “Marvin keeps texting me.”
“What does he say?”
“He wants to talk. He says he’s not mad. I guess Mom’s mad enough for both of them.”
“What do you want to have happen?”
Nicole took a long time to respond. The firepit’s glow put out so much heat the mist was almost comforting, as if time itself held no sway in this small space. Finally, she said, “I don’t know.”
“Well, when you decide, if you want to talk about it, I’m here. If you don’t, that’s okay too.”
Nicole’s silence left Daniel feeling as though everything he’d said was wrong. He sat there a while longer, then decided he wasn’t helping. He rose to his feet and said, “I’m going to make myself some breakfast. Do you want anything? Another coffee?”
“Maybe later.”
Daniel padded across the lawn, leaving wet footprints in his wake. As he entered the office, he glanced back. Nicole had drawn her knees up to her chin and cradled her phone with both hands. She stared into the mist. Daniel hated his sense of helplessness. But he was also intensely glad he could be there for her. He carried these balanced and conflicting emotions back into the kitchen. It felt like a cold breeze of past events had bitten its way into his present life, which he found both very good and very frightening indeed.
He made himself a bowl of granola and berries and ate it standing by the front window. He then brewed another coffee and carried it to his office. But as he turned on his monitors, he was struck by a sudden idea.
Daniel returned to the house and walked down the hallway to the big closet that was probably intended to hold linens. Instead, he used it to store all his office files. He pulled out three monitors and a base unit he kept around in case of an emergency, carried these into the office, then went to the garage for his crate of extra cables. It felt good doing something for Nicole. Trying to make her feel that she was welcome, that he wanted her around, that she could consider this her refuge for as long . . .
“Daniel?”
He emerged from beneath the desk. “Yes?”
Nicole held out her phone. “Will you call him for me?”
CHAPTER 11
Daniel waited almost an hour before placing the call. He continued to wire up Nicole’s station and talked as he worked. He discovered Nicole was much more comfortable speaking when he was not focused directly on her, as though the weight of his gaze and his attention was too heavy. So long as he remained under the long table, fiddling with wires, she relaxed. When he was finished, he pulled over his own office chair, seated himself, and began checking the connections. All the while, they talked in quiet snatches. Daniel would ask a question, and she would think, then reply in a soft voice. But she was comfortable now. Sad, of course. The reason all this was happening remained a burden and a wound. She took the same position in the second office chair as she had by the firepit, knees pulled up so her chin could rest on them, staring at the brightening day. But there was a new ease to her now. As if she was trusting him to make the next step. For her. Daniel found himself filled with an exquisite sense of rightness as he left the office. He washed off the dust and returned to ask, “Ready?”
She nodded. “What have I got to lose, right?”
“A joke. I like it.”
“A bad one.”
“Hey. You still get an A for effort.” He took her phone and connected it to his computer. This allowed him to set up a conference structure with two sets of headphones. Nicole could listen in, and speak if she wanted, but only to him. Daniel’s headset contained a microphone as well. “Test, test.”
“I’m scared.”
“Me too, a little.”
“You’re not. You’re as cold as ice.”
“It’s a façade. Developed after years in front of the camera, pretending I knew what I was talking about.” He held up the phone. And waited.
“Thank you, Uncle Daniel.”
“Let’s drop the uncle, okay? It’s just Daniel between friends.” He hit REDIAL. “Here we go.”
* * *
Marvin answered with, “Nicole, honey?”
“It’s Daniel.”
A pause, then, “How is Nicole?”
Daniel swiveled his chair around so he faced Nicole. “Surprisingly good, all things considered. And Lisa, how’s she doing?”
“Angry. Hurting. Venting steam. You know Lisa.”
Daniel kept his gaze on Nicole, trying to read on that troubled young face what he should say. “How are you guys?”
“We’re coping. Or at least we’re trying to.”
“Nicole will be very happy to hear that.”
There was a silence long enough for Nicole to wipe her face twice. Then Marvin asked, “Can I speak to her?”
Daniel had taken all this time both to prepare Nicole and to prep his response. Because this was where it all came together. Getting the next thing right. He suspected Nicole knew this. And it was one big reason why he was the one having this conversation. “Are you sure you want to?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Are you willing to do what it would take? Because this isn’t about having a chat, is it, Marv? You want to make peace.”
Daniel had learned this particular method of conversation since coming to Miramar. California had a new homegrown industry, thanks to the opioid epidemic. Even the smallest town now had counselors specializing in addiction and recovery. There were a lot of people like Daniel, who had no interest in the public spectacle aspect of rehab centers. They were intensely private people, and yet they knew that this habitual seclusion was part of the problem. So they sought help, but did so within an environment of solitude. Addiction therapists assured these patients a higher degree of confidentiality and discretion. But they also probed. And the best, like Daniel’s therapist, did so by redirecting comments and questions so that it was the patient who asked, and not them. Uncovering the hidden issue in the process. Just like Daniel did now.
The LA attorney took a long moment before responding, “What are you suggesting?”
“Two things. That you come up and speak with Nicole in person.”
Marvin did not respond. But Daniel had learned the pressure of remaining quiet, even when he was watching his niece leak tears. He waited.
Finally, Marvin said, “I’m faced with two dilemmas. I want to make peace with my daughter.... Does she still consider me her father?”
Daniel watched Nicole nod. “She absolutely does, Marvin. But on her terms. Which means in total honesty.”
