The early-morning sun slanting through the wooden blinds woke Clancy up. For a moment he was confused, until he remembered where he was: in his father's house. His new house, not the one Clancy was used to, the one that held all the memories.
He looked at his watch, which he'd left on the bedside table. Six-forty-five. Early. He drank a glass of water hum the pitcher that had been set out for him. Like the rest of the house, this room was nicely put together. Egyptian cotton sheets and an old chenille bedspread covered a wooden-post queen-sized bed. The chest of drawers in the corner was stressed pine, the rug on the dark hardwood floor a fine sisal. And this was the guest room. The other rooms were even more nicely furnished.
There was money in this house. And taste that money can't buy. Walt Gaines had never had either, not on this level.
He showered, shaved, brushed his teeth, packed his small bag. His flight left at noon—he had time to kill before he left for the airport. More time to spend with his father. He drank another glass of water, trying to clear the cotton out of his mouth. It helped, but not completely.
Emma was already bustling about in the kitchen when he came in. She was dressed, showered, set up for her day. Clancy wasn't surprised that she was there—he would have been surprised if she hadn't been. He remembered, vaguely, hearing a car in the middle of the night. Was that her, returning after he had gone to bed? He didn't know, and anyway, what did it matter? She and his father were together. Get over it.
“Good morning,” she sang out. “Sleep well?”
“Like a brick,” he lied easily.
“Coffee?” she asked, smiling at him.
“Please.”
She poured him a cup of coffee. “There's milk on the table. Help yourself.”
The table in the breakfast nook was set with three places. Knives, forks, and spoons were laid out neatly on linen napkins, there was butter in a china butter dish, jam, in a small bowl, cream and sugar in matching pewter servers. A large bowl of fresh peaches and nectarine resided in the middle of the table. Martha Stewart couldn't set a better table, Clancy thought bemusedly.
“Walt should show his face soon,” Emma said. “He's an early riser.” She smiled at him again. “I guess it runs in your family. I'm going to make waffles, but would you like anything else in the meantime? There's juice, bagels, cereal.”
“This is fine. Thank you.” He sat down and poured some milk into his cup, stirred it.
Something about this domestic tableau was annoying—it was too damn neat, almost antiseptic, a photo shoot out of Architectural Digest. Not Walt Gaines's style. His father was a very different man now from the one Clancy had known his entire life. How much has he changed? Clancy wondered. What other changes am I going to discover that I don't know about yet? And how many others won't I like?
Emma took off after breakfast. She and Clancy said their good-byes; she was glad he'd come to visit them, the first of many visits, she hoped, the usual palaver people say when they don't know each other well enough to say anything meaningful. He said the same things back to her.
After she left, Clancy filled Walt in on what was going on with him and his brothers. It all sounded good to Walt, he and Jocelyn had done their job—they'd taught the fledglings how to fly without crashing.
For his part, Walt expanded on what he was doing: research on his book, guest-lecturing at various colleges in the area, consulting with museums and foundations. He didn't miss Wisconsin at all.
“What's going on with La Chimenea?” Clancy asked, after his father had touched the other bases. It had been over a year since Walt had been there. “When are you going back down again?”
Walt's face clouded. “That's up in the air.” He hesitated. “I can't handle being there.”
That his father was reticent to return to the site was understandable, but it still came as a shock to Clancy. The development of La Chimenea was going to be his father's monument. Now he was thinking of abandoning it? Clancy understood that being there would be traumatic, because of the memory of his mother being killed. But it hadn't happened there, and time had passed.
“La Chimenea didn't kill mom.”
Walt looked at him sharply.
“She loved it down there.” Clancy could see that his father didn't want to get into this, but he felt he had to. Ghosts have to be buried, or they'll haunt you forever. “Mom would've wanted you to.”
“You don't know that,” Walt said darkly.
“I know that she loved that you loved your work,” Clancy replied. “She wouldn't want you making this kind of sacrifice for her.”
Right thing to say, but the wrong time. Clancy knew that before he said it, but he couldn't help himself. He didn't want to rile his dad up, especially now that they'd reestablished their relationship, but it had to be said.
“She's the one who sacrificed,” Walt said. He was glowering. “She put my wishes and needs before hers her entire life. And look what it got her.”
“It got her you, and us, and a life she loved.”
“It got her killed.”
“It was an accident, dad.” Damn it, why had he ever started up on this? He put up his hands in a defensive posture. “Let's not talk about it anymore, okay? It's not my place to tell you what to do or not to do. You'll do what's right for you, dad, I know you will.”
Walt looked away for a moment. When he looked back, he was forcing a smile. “I'm gonna try. Hey, we've had a good time, haven't we?”
“We've had a great time, dad.”
Walt walked Clancy to his car. They hugged.
“It's going to be different between us from now on,” Walt promised Clancy. “For all of us.”
“That's super, dad. That's what we all want.”
“Give my love to Callie. And your brothers.” He grinned. It was the first honest smile Clancy had seen that harked back to the old Walt Gaines. “Tell them that from now on, when they call me, I'll answer the phone.”
He saw Walt waving in the rearview mirror until he turned the corner and couldn't see him anymore. Man, was he glad he had come up here. Granted, Walt wasn't supposed to have been home, but maybe the reconciliation was destined to come about the way it did. It had happened, that was the important thing.
He drove a few blocks past houses that were similar in size and feel to his father's—this was a high-class neighborhood, for sure. Looking out the front windshield, he noticed a FOR SALE sign planted in a front lawn. The house was California Spanish in design, like his father's. Walt's house was slightly smaller, and this house was on a larger lot, but they were roughly similar.
I wonder what these places cost? he thought. If you paid the going price, which his father, luckily, hadn't had to do.
He pulled over to the curb and jotted down the address, and the name and phone number of the listing agent's office.
“I'd like to speak to Louise Bernstein, please.”
Clancy stood at a pay phone in the United Airhnes terminal. His plane would begin boarding in five minutes. He'd called Callie and told her it was, miraculously, on schedule. Since he had a few minutes to kill, he'd made this call.
“This is Louise Bernstein.” The voice of the woman who came on the line was crisp, businesslike.
“I'm from out of town,” Clancy told her over the phone. “I'm considering relocating my business out here, and I saw a house you represent in a neighborhood I've been touted on.” He read off the address.
“Well, you picked one of the best areas in Los Angeles, Mr. …”
A name. He glanced at the boarding pass in his hand.
“O'Hare.”
“Mr. O'Hare. What business are you in, if I may ask.”
“Fitness centers.” Not much of a stretch.
“Oh, that's good.” He could hear her voice brightening—she was talking to a man with money, not some waste-my-time looky-loo. “That's a great business to be in, especially out here. I belong to two clubs myself.”
“I'm sure you're fit, then,”
he bantered.
“I try. It's a never-ending battle.” She paused a moment—he imagined she was picking up pen and paper. “Would you like to see the house?” she asked. “I could arrange a tour, although not until tomorrow.”
“I'm returning to Chicago today. But I'll be back in a couple of weeks. We could do it then.”
“I could probably get you in today,” she replied quickly. “A house of that quality in that neighborhood isn't going to be on the market for long. I've only just listed it. I'd hate for you to miss out without having a chance to see it.”
“Umm …” He waited a moment, as if pondering the thought. “I have people waiting for me on the other end, that's the problem. But maybe I could rearrange my schedule. What's the asking price?”
He listened for a moment; then he almost dropped the phone, along with his jaw. How fucking much? got to the tip of his tongue before he managed to choke it down.
“Mr. O'Hare,” the broker was saying to dead air. “Are you there? Have we been cut off? Mr. O'Hare?”
He replaced the phone on its cradle.
CHICAGO
The brothers were hanging together at Clancy's bar early on a Sunday morning. Today was the first time the three of them had been able to get together since Clancy's return from the coast. They had talked on the phone and exchanged e-mails, but Tom and Will wanted a face-to-face lowdown on their father's situation.
From Labor Day until Christmas, Sunday was Clancy's biggest money making day, courtesy of the NFL and satellite TV. (Monday, because of Monday Night Football, was the second busiest). The pregame shows came on at eleven, which was when he unlocked the doors. By the time the first of the five televised games of the day started—the twelve o'clock and three o'clock on FOX, the same on CBS, and the seven-thirty on ESPN—the place would be rocking, patrons four deep at the bar, bumping up against each other, hefting their glasses and yelling at the TV screens, particularly if the Bears were on against one of their archrivals, like the Lions or Vikings.
Now, though, at nine o'clock, the place was empty except for the three of them. The bartenders and waitresses would start drifting in around ten-thirty. Callie had stayed home—she avoided the Sunday mosh pit.
Tom and Will had flown into Midway early in the morning, coordinating their flights to arrive close together. Clancy had picked them up, having already stopped at a deli on the way to the airport to load up on lox, bagels, and Danish.
He put a pot of coffee on. The bar didn't serve food, but he had a microwave and a toaster oven for heating up carry-in, so they could toast the bagels. There was milk in the refrigerator for the coffee, and orange juice as well. They sat at one of the dark oak tables, upon which decades of students had carved initials into the wood, I heir breakfast goodies laid out before them.
“Dig in,” Clancy exhorted his brothers, loading up a plate for himself.
“Okay,” Tom said, smearing cream cheese on his bagel. “What's up with the old dad? Spare no details.”
“Well, for openers, he's involved.”
“With a woman?” Will asked through a mouthful of cherry Danish.
“No, dipshit, a rhinoceros. Of course a woman.”
Will looked puzzled, and upset. “Who is she? How did this come about? When you say ‘involved,’ what do you mean? Dating her, sleeping with her, what?”
“This is pretty unsettling,” Tom added. “Mom's barely—you know, we just buried her.”
“It's been over a year,” Clancy reminded them. “But I know what you mean, I was taken aback when I saw her wuh him.”
“At his house?” Tom asked. “You saw her with him where he's living?”
Clancy nodded.
“So is she living with him?” Tom again.
“Technically, no, according to dad,” Clancy answered. “She has her own place, near his. But she was there when I woke up, so I'm sure she's spending nights, at the least.”
“Shit, man.” Tom was getting agitated.
“What does she look like?” Will asked. He was taking this news more calmly than Tom, who was always the quickest to assume the worst.
“About five-eight, blond, nice figure, on the willowy side. A very attractive woman.”
“Yeah, like dad's going to go for a skank,” Tom said. “Does she remind you of mom?”
Clancy shook his head. ‘The only similarity is that she seems devoted to dad, like mom was.”
“Well, that's one thing in her favor,” Will offered up.
“It is. As he is to her,” Clancy added.
“Damn,” Tom muttered under his breath. “What other grenades are you going to lob at us?”
“She's thirty-two.”
Tom, who had bitten into his bagel, almost involuntarily spat it out.
“Thirty-three, thirty-four tops,” Clancy said. “A couple years older than me,” he added as a frame of reference; not that they needed one.
Will whistled through his teeth. “Dad's involved with a woman half his age?” he said. His tone was one of half-disbelief, half-admiration. “That old hound dog.”
Tom scowled. “Okay, so he's got a new sweetie who's the same age as his kids. He's not the first man who's done that. What else?”
Clancy topped up his coffee cup. “He's living very well. He's driving a new Mercedes.”
Will laughed. “No more Mr. Volvo? What the hell—out there even the maids drive Mercedes. A Mercedes seems kind of stodgy, though. You'd think a BMW, at least a Lexus.”
“She drives a Beemer,” Clancy informed him. ‘The little sports car model.”
“Okay, so he's got that covered. Anything else?”
Clancy put his coffee cup down. “His house is worth millions.”
“That has to be bullshit,” Will said with incredulity. “I know it's expensive living out there, but dad can't afford a million-dollar house.”
“Millions,” Clancy corrected him. “Plural, not singular.”
“How do you know?” Tom questioned. “Did you ask him?”
“No, and he wouldn't have told me.” He walked behind the bar, reached into a drawer under the cash register, took out a sheet of paper, brought it back to the table, and set it down. “It's a real estate listing.”
Will looked at it. “Westwood, California? Pretty fancy.” Bending closer, he read, “Two point two million dollars? Are you shitting me?” He looked up at Clancy. “You're not telling us this is dad's house … are you?”
“Man, this is insane,” Tom added, equally stunned.
“No, it isn't his house,” Clancy said quickly.
Will exhaled. “You had me going there for a second, Clancy.”
“But dad's is pretty much like this one. Same neighborhood, same style.”
“Where the hell would he get that kind of money?” Tom asked. “Where did you get this?”
“Don't get your bowels in an uproar. Yes, he's living in a very expensive house, but no, he didn't spend millions on it. And I got that offer sheet from the listing agent for this house. She faxed it to me when I got back here. I conned her into thinking I'm a prospective buyer.”
“That'll be the day,” Tom said.
The front door swung open. A young woman dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with the Finnegan's logo stenciled on the front breezed in. “Hey, Clancy,” she sang out.
“Hey, Rhonda,” he called back.
“Bears-Tampa Bay, first game out of the box on FOX,” the woman called out merrily. She stood behind the bar, tapping the kegs to see how full each was. “Could be blood on the floor. You order extra kegs?”
“We're covered,” Clancy assured her.
She headed for the walk-in refrigerator at the back.
“Eat up, guys,” Clancy admonished his brothers. “I've got to start getting this show on the road.”
“The house,” Tom persisted. “How's a retired college professor afford a house like this? He bought it, right? He isn't renting it.”
“He bought it, yes. The woman—Emma—snuc
k him in the side door.”
As they ate he explained about the previous owner's sudden death, and how Emma helped Walt take over the existing loan and mortgage without having to refinance.
“He lucked out,” Clancy said. “After the crummy hands he's been dealt lately, he deserved some good luck.” He recalled that Walt had said the same thing to him when he'd questioned him, as his brothers were doing now.
Will shook his head. “This sounds fishy, Clancy. Getting a two-million-plus house for under a million? Why would a bank blow off that kind of money? They're in the business to make money, not piss it away.”
“That's what I thought,” Clancy said. “But the way dad explained it to me, they're in the bank business, not the real estate business. And he got a sweet deal for the house in Madison, so he was able to swing it.” He ticked the salient points off on his fingers. “He has no expenses anymore to speak of. We're all off the payroll, he has his university pension, he's going to start teaching at another university out there, he still has his grants. More power to him,” he added.
“And mom's insurance,” Tom added. He seemed to be the most unhappy of the three of them about the direction his father's life was taking.
“There wouldn't have been much insurance on her,” Will rebutted. He was in the money business, he knew about this stuff. “It would've been a waste of money. They had those strong pensions coming, and they always lived pretty modestly. If there was a policy on her, I doubt it was more than a couple hundred thousand dollars.”
“Enough to swing a down payment on a discounted house,” Clancy pointed out. His brothers’ suspicious attitudes were upsetting, because he'd had similar feelings when he had been out there.
Will nodded. “That's true,” he allowed reluctantly.
The other bartenders and waitstaff were arriving, exchanging greetings with Clancy. They started setting up for the day's business.
“We're going to have to wrap it up,” Clancy said. He was glad they weren't going any further with this now, it was giving him a headache. “We'll continue at dinner tonight.” He hadn't gotten around to mentioning the wine cellar or the kachina dolls and the other expensive furnishings in their father's new digs. “You guys gonna stick around and watch the games?”
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