Despite the temperate day, my hands reddened from a January chill—and from gripping the two containers of food I’d brought so I wouldn’t show up empty-handed.
I didn’t even realize I was looking at the neighbor’s house Manning had helped build until he turned, too. “What’d we even talk about that day?” he asked, his eyes on the wall where we’d sat.
“I don’t know. Little nothings.” I glanced up at him. “But at the time it’d felt like the world.”
He rubbed the back of my neck, moving my hair aside. I’d cut it to my shoulders the week before. Being thirty-one and on my own for over a decade should’ve been enough to face my dad feeling like an adult, but I wasn’t sure it would be. I hoped looking the part would help him see I wasn’t the same girl who’d bowed to her father’s every demand.
“I’ll go in first,” Manning said. “They’re expecting me.”
“You and a date,” I reminded him.
“I only said I was bringing someone to give your mom a heads up for the meal.”
I’d been mentally preparing for this for weeks. As it had many times over the drive from Big Bear, my stomach flipped at the thought of walking in uninvited. “Okay,” I agreed.
Manning raised his fist to knock, but I pulled his elbow back down. I glanced up at the second-floor landing where I’d sat through many sunsets, watching our neighborhood from the upstairs of the only home I’d known until eighteen. “What if they’re disgusted with us?” I asked. “Embarrassed? Maybe we should’ve called first.”
“It’s not the kind of thing you say over the phone,” he reminded me. “And if that happens, what changes, except that we’re finally freed by the truth?”
“My dad’s contempt is loud in his silence. It’ll be deafening in person.”
“Give him a chance.” Manning kissed the top of my head. “If he can’t accept it, you don’t lose anything.”
“You do,” I said.
“You’re more important. If he can’t accept that you and I are sincerely happy, then I gave him too much credit.”
I turned my entire body to him, hugging the Tupperware so tightly to my stomach, the plastic edges pressed through my sweater. “And what about Tiffany?”
“At least we know what to expect from her.” Manning and I had been over this several times, but he patiently walked me through it again. “She’ll make it about her, and there’ll be a scene. But when she finds something else to be annoyed over, she’ll move on.”
I shifted between feet. If I was an expert in anything, it was the drama that turned Tiffany’s world. The difference now, though? I wasn’t an innocent kid enduring her sister’s overdeveloped sense of teen angst. I’d crossed lines and made decisions knowing they’d hurt her.
But I was also older and more adept at taking shit. I was steeled by the knowledge that nothing Tiffany said or did could deny or undermine the love between Manning and me. Compared to my dad, the approach of Tornado Tiffany actually felt manageable.
Manning knocked firmly, then let himself in. “Hello?”
Once he’d disappeared into the house, I stepped through the open door. Even the warm embrace of home and the festive pine-needle air couldn’t strip the tension from my body.
It didn’t help that the first door off the entryway shut off my father’s study. I could picture him at his desk, doing whatever it was he did in there. Where the study had once held an air of mystery and the forbidden, I no longer cared about it. He’d probably made calls to his mistress in there, corresponded with his friends at the Ritz as he’d arranged the wedding for one daughter and the downfall of his other. Maybe he’d even used his power and influence to get me into USC instead of letting me do it myself—I wouldn’t put much past him.
I tiptoed past, trying to quiet my boot heels on the tile. Mom had ripped up the carpet on the stairs to the second floor. More wreaths and poinsettias decorated the house. In the TV room, a real tree stopped a foot beneath the ceiling—it was still full and deeply green, not to mention weighed down with a mixture of expensive glass ornaments and colorful sentimental ones.
The turkey-in-the-oven aroma and deep register of Manning’s voice called me to the kitchen like a siren song, but I stayed quiet and out of sight.
“It’s been so long since you came by,” my mom said. I had to lean forward to listen, her voice soft enough that I assumed she and Manning were hugging. “I left all the decorations up for you. I wasn’t sure if you’d spent the holidays with anyone.”
“Thank you, Cathy.”
“Although . . . well, I haven’t mentioned anything to Charles or Tiffany because they’ll call me silly. When you said you were bringing a date, I just couldn’t imagine you’d introduce us to anyone. It’s not the kind of man you are, mixing your two lives. Unless those lives are already . . . mixed.”
“Cathy,” he said.
“Am I right?” she asked. “If not, it’s okay. I want you to be happy, Manning. But I miss my baby and sometimes I lie awake at night wondering if you’re the only person who could bring her home.”
Chills rose over my skin despite the weight of my sweater. Although this hadn’t been my home in a while, it felt nice to hear her say that. No matter what had passed between all of us, I could never erase the happy memories I’d made in this house.
“I know you and Tiffany divorced,” Mom continued, “but you’re family. We’re your family. So tell me we haven’t seen you in years because you’ve had a very good reason to stay away.”
“It’s a good reason, ma’am,” Manning said, and I heard both the pride and emotion in his voice. “The best. Almost as good as why I came back.”
That was my cue to enter a kitchen I hadn’t stepped foot in for years, but where I’d eaten more meals than anywhere, had learned to cook, and had spent countless hours on homework. Some days, between school, Dad’s work, Mom’s real estate appointments, and Tiffany’s social life, the kitchen table was the only time all day I’d see my family in one place.
Still, my feet were leaden in my boots—and my mom was supposed to be the easiest part of the day. I peeked into the kitchen and caught sight of Manning’s back. Knowing he’d be by my side gave me the courage to do it. I walked in food first, holding out the containers of pie and tamales I’d brought like a shield.
Manning turned at my footsteps, revealing Mom behind him. I realized in that moment that I’d expected to see the same woman who’d raised me—after all, she sounded the same and treated me the same over the phone. In a cardigan and cigarette pants, hair done in a long bob, her style hadn’t changed, but it took my brain a moment to close the fourteen-year gap between us. She was thinner, the angles of her jaw and curve of her cheekbones more pronounced.
Her eyes, the same family of blue she’d passed on to Tiffany and me, filled with tears in an instant. “Lake?” she nearly whispered.
My voice broke. “Mom.”
She came and hugged me around the food clutched in my hands, not even seeming to notice it between us. It was hard not to fall headlong into her familiar scent, a mixture of lemon dish soap and Chanel No. 5.
Manning carefully took the Tupperware from me, then found spots for it on the crowded countertops. The tension in his fingers and jawline mirrored the stiffness of my shoulders. This was as important to him as it was terrifying to me, which was the catalyst behind why I’d come.
But in the end, it wasn’t the reason. This was: my mom rubbing my back as I fought the urge to cry, comforting me the way she had so many times growing up.
“Lake, honey. There, there,” Mom said. She’d always seemed to know when I was upset, even when I’d hidden it. “You’re so grown up. Such a beautiful young woman.”
With her soft words and tightening embrace, what became clear was the years I’d taken away from her by feuding with my dad and Tiffany. I’d known that already, and had harbored some guilt over it, but for the first time, I saw everything as Manning always had. My parents and I had missed out on
valuable time together over issues that were heavy because I’d given them more weight than they deserved. Unsure of how else to convey a sudden and overwhelming regret, I hugged her back and just said, “Mom.”
She pulled back to take my face in her hands. Despite a sheen of tears, she smiled, the corners of her eyes creasing with new wrinkles. “You’re my baby, you know that?”
I nodded, my chin wobbling. “Yes.”
“Thank you for coming home.”
“Thank Manning,” I said, already missing his presence. Where had he gone? With a slight turn of my head, all I could manage with my mom’s hands holding my cheeks, I saw he hadn’t gone anywhere but to a corner where the counters met. The same corner he’d stood the night he’d gotten out of jail, the one spot from where he could see everything in the kitchen, including the doorway to the foyer and to the backyard. He did the same at home, keeping his back to the wall. In public, too. He always walked closest to the curb, insisted on driving any time we were together, and sat at dining tables where he could see the entrance to the restaurant. I hadn’t really noticed the habit back then, but it’d become obvious over years of living with him.
Mom kept an arm around me, following my gaze to Manning. “Oh my,” she said on a sigh. “I suspected over the years, and even hoped, but I didn’t really consider the . . . logistics.”
“You hoped?” I asked quietly.
She turned back to me. “That you and Manning had found your way to each other? Yes. After his divorce, of course.”
“But why?” I asked.
She shook her head, as if she wasn’t quite sure herself. “I guess it was the only comfort I had. Manning is such a strong, capable man. And loving, too. It gave me peace thinking he was with you.”
It was a nice sentiment, but also a reminder of the fact that my connection with Manning had always been impossible to ignore—and yet they had. Ignored it. All of them. I pulled back, wary of forgetting the past, even though I didn’t necessarily want to put more distance between us. “Is it a problem that I’m here?”
“Of course not. I’ve got plenty of food—”
“I mean for Dad.”
Manning rounded the island, taking a beer from the fridge on his way.
“He’ll have to accept it or stay in his study all night,” she said.
The fear that Tiffany or my dad would walk in stopped me from reaching for Manning’s hand. He winked at me, acknowledging that the same was true for him. “What do you want?” he asked. “Wine? Beer? Water?”
“Water’s good,” I said.
“You should go to the study to say hello,” Mom added. “Might be easier for him to swallow this on his territory.”
It all had to be on his terms. It wasn’t surprising but that didn’t mean it wasn’t also frustrating. “On second thought,” I said to Manning, swallowing as my nerves kicked in, “I’ll take some wine.”
Manning nodded and left the room, presumably to raid my dad’s bar.
Mom picked up an oven mitt. “Almost forgot about the candied yams,” she said, opening the oven and waving heat away. “I recreated Christmas dinner in case Manning hadn’t gotten one.” She looked over her shoulder at me and hesitated. “Has it always been him?”
“Always.”
“And is it . . .” She straightened up, moving the baking dish to a trivet. “Is it good?”
I crossed my arms in front of me as the contents of my stomach tumbled. “If he weren’t the best thing that ever happened to me,” I said, “do you think I’d put all of us through this?”
“Surely not,” she agreed, smiling again with tear-glossed eyes, despite my defensive tone.
I inhaled deeply. “About Tiffany—”
Mom waved a mitt at me. “Don’t worry about her.”
“But—”
“Pinot Noir and a peace offering,” Manning said, returning with wine and a tumbler of amber liquid. “He’ll be in the mood for this midday.”
I took both drinks. “Thanks.”
“Want me to come with you?”
“It’s okay.” Walking into my dad’s study after all this time with my sister’s ex-husband—a man my dad had tried to keep me from—didn’t seem like the right way to approach this.
“I said I’d be by your side with you the whole time,” Manning reminded me.
“Knowing you're here is enough. I should do this alone so he doesn’t feel ambushed.”
“When you get to the part about you and me, I’d like to be there.”
A conversation with my dad wouldn’t last long. On his best days, he wasn’t one for idle chitchat. The thought of being alone with him beyond formalities was enough to make me shudder. “Give us a few minutes,” I said to Manning, “but no longer.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll be right outside the door.”
If my mom had an opinion on how I should do this, she didn’t volunteer it. She just watched as Manning walked me out of the kitchen. Once in the foyer, there was nothing left to do but knock. Since my hands were full, Manning tapped on the door.
“Grab a bottle of bourbon and come on in,” came my dad’s voice.
“He must’ve heard me earlier. He thinks you’re me.” Manning jutted his chin at me, urging me in as he turned the knob. “You’ve already got the Maker’s Mark. Go on.”
With a steeling breath, I entered the lion’s den armed only with liquid courage and the comforting knowledge that when it came to my relationship with my father, things couldn’t get much worse.
5
The door to my dad’s study closed behind me, sealing me into a room I knew about as well as the man himself. Quiet, tidy, and eerily still, the room only held things my dad loved. Expensive liquor bottles and crystal glasses. Business textbooks that dated back to his time in school. Guns. File cabinets I’d never seen the contents of—important items that kept our household running but that had been sealed away from the women in his life. It occurred to me that Manning probably knew this office better than I did and had maybe even been privy to its secrets and mysteries.
It took Dad a moment to look up from his computer. With his double take, the beginnings of his smile faded. “What’s this?”
Taking him by surprise had been a risk; he didn’t like to be caught off guard, but this way, he wouldn’t have time to work himself into a fury, either. At least not right away. “I . . . I came for dinner.”
He sat back in his seat, looking me over. “I thought you were Manning.”
I walked farther into the room and set his bourbon on the desk. Although there were more gadgets, it mostly looked the same. “This is—”
“I know what it is.” He picked up the tumbler but didn’t drink from it. He had a USC paperweight that had once been on my dresser.
He noticed me looking at it. “What are you doing here?”
“I came for dinner,” I repeated. With the way he glowered at the door behind me, I felt the need to add, “Mom didn’t know.”
“You could’ve given her some warning. Seeing you must’ve upset her.”
There might not’ve been a quicker path to making me feel like a child than standing in front of his desk. Here, I’d received summer reading lists, been scolded or praised over grades, and been assigned chores. It wasn’t a bad feeling so much as a familiar one. Though my dad’s study had been intimidating, it’d made me more nervous than afraid—the way he’d click about on his computer, doing what looked like important things as he’d ask about my day at school.
I was a mixture of all those things now—intimidated, nervous, afraid—but the difference was I’d grown up and, for the most part, had learned how to harness those emotions.
And that I was old enough to drink.
I took a long sip of wine and sat across from him. “I didn’t come in here to talk about Mom. I came to warn you that I’ll be at the dinner table whether you want me there or not.”
“My dinner table,” he said.
“Not just yours. All
of ours.” He stared at me as if I’d wandered in off the street. Maybe I’d stunned him—my unflinching father. His silence only spurred me on. “Who makes the dinner you eat off the table every night?” I asked. “Which little girl has stitches on her chin from when she tripped and hit the edge? Who—”
“All right, all right. I get the gist.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, leaning back in his seat with a heavy sigh. “Give me a minute.”
Only when he shut his eyes could I really allow myself to look at him. He, too, was older. Graying at his temples, lines on his face and hands, he wore his age more obviously but more gracefully than my mother, who’d seemed tired.
Didn’t he have anything to say? Didn’t I look different to him, too?
“Of course you do,” he said.
I hadn’t realized I’d said it aloud, but if we had any hope at a relationship, it was probably best I started speaking up. There was no reason he should intimidate me anymore. Where he was concerned, I had nothing left to lose. He’d given up hope on me long ago. Not for the first time, I understood my sister’s apathy over anything that mattered to my father. If even her best efforts were met with disappointment, why try?
Finally, he opened one eye and then another. “Why now?”
“Why now what?”
“You left with no notice. We haven’t seen you in years. Of course I’m going to ask what brings you back.”
“I do,” Manning said from behind me.
I turned in my seat to look at the man I loved, the one who’d not only brought me back, but had my back. I hadn’t heard him come in, and maybe I was supposed to do this kind of thing on my own, but I was glad for his reinforcement.
Manning entered, closing the study door behind him. He created his own presence in the room instead of shrinking for my dad the way my sister, mom and I did. His eyes stayed forward as he approached my chair. “Mr. Kaplan.”
I sat back, unsurprised to find Dad watching me, even as he said, “Manning . . .”
“He’s the reason I’m here,” I said.
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