“So weird how I don’t remember any of that drama,” Erik said. “I can remember the emotions from when he left, but I’ve forgotten the day-to-day events. I can see his truck driving away and making a left turn. Then the chronology just implodes and my next memories come from living in Rochester.”
“A year they searched. Your mom hired detectives both in the States and Canada. She starved herself to a thread looking for him. My mother would always give me the latest news, but she had less and less to give as time went on.”
“I didn’t realize how badly I was traumatized until I was in my twenties,” Erik said. “I shut down. And when other traumatizing events happened in my life, I reacted by shutting down. My dad taught me leaving was the solution to things.”
“How about your brother?”
“He stopped talking. He wouldn’t wear his hearing aids. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to talk about it. It’s a wonder he didn’t put his own eyes out.”
“Astrid was destroyed,” Mike said. “Now both her boys were gone. You knew about your dad’s brother, right?”
“Only recently.”
Mike’s shoulders gave a small shudder. “No parent should have to outlive their child. It’s… It’s so against the natural order of things that it’s offensive. Seeing a parent have to bury their child offends me. You know what I mean?”
Erik nodded, barely able to wrap his mind around the amount of loss his grandmother had endured. How the saga of the Fiskares was imbued with so much tragedy.
“For Byron to disappear after she lost Xandro? And then to find out he was alive, he’d just deserted his family? Not only you and your mother and brother, but everyone in Clayton? No doubt in my mind, your grandmother died of a broken heart,” Mike said. “And Kennet was never the same. He watched Astrid waste away and frankly I’m surprised he survived her as long as he did. Then in eighty-seven he passed, and Emil lay down months later and checked out. It was the end. The whole hotel felt lopsided, like it had been through an earthquake and nobody would fix the foundations. Nobody would build on top of it ever again. I think that’s why Kirsten sold it off.”
“I had no idea,” Erik said. “My mom took us to Rochester and my mind hit the reset button. She brought us back here a few times and I can barely remember them.”
Mike’s hands twisted and he started and stopped a half-dozen times before he next spoke. “I felt bad. I still do. I feel like I could have done more for you.”
“For me?” Erik said. “How?”
“I mean the way Byron did for me. Been more of an uncle to you that first year. After your mother took you back to Rochester, I could’ve made more of an effort to reach out and let you know I was here. I don’t know. It was bitter. I don’t pretend to have words to describe your experience. For my part, it was crushing, bitter disappointment to find out a guy I admired so much could be such a heartless prick. I hear he didn’t even show up at the divorce hearing.”
“No, he did,” Erik said. “It’s when he gave my mom this.” He hooked a finger under the gold chain. “Do you remember my father wearing this?”
“God, yeah. Shit, look at that. So he did show up?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Huh. What were his reasons? Was it another woman?”
Erik opened his mouth and shut it, shaking his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “She didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. Like I said before, I want to hear about him but not from my mother. And if it makes you feel any better, I have the same kind of regret for not making more of an effort with my grandparents. To see them in their last years. I know about bitter. I was young and punky and self-centered but I could have tried.”
“Well, you’re here now,” Mike said and offered his glass. “Life is full of second chances.”
“No shit, cousin.”
“Skål”
Erik clinked his glass. “My dad said that.”
“I know,” Mike said, and drank.
Erik unlocked the hotel room door and let himself in softly. But Daisy was awake, sitting up under the light of the bedside lamp, reading. “Hey,” she said.
He smiled with a wave, depleted of words, emotionally exhausted. More than a little buzzed. He brushed his teeth and got into bed, full of thoughts and memories. A confused snarl of rusty barbed wire and beautiful silken yarns.
“I’m going to be all up in my head the rest of the night,” he said. “I don’t feel much like talking right now. I’m sorry in advance.”
She patted him, leaned and kissed his face. “Don’t be,” she said. And went back to her book and let him be.
He lay on his side, staring at the folds of the covers draped over her hip, thinking about a million things. Barely blinking, he surfed the waves of his breath. Thinking. Remembering. Not remembering. Arranging puzzle pieces.
I hear he didn’t even show up at the divorce hearing.
Erik’s fingers toyed with the charms. Of course Byron had showed up. It was the story Christine told. The story Erik kept telling when he checked “divorced” on school forms and left “father’s name” blank.
My parents are divorced. My father left us when I was eight and Mom divorced him when I was ten. When they signed papers, he gave her the necklace to give to me.
Fred’s face swam into memory, looking up at Erik from the bottom of a ladder.
I think she’s still married to your father.
“I have my wedding band,” Christine said. “Upstairs in my jewelry box.”
The way he loved your mother. It was like a thing in the air.
Daisy got up to use the bathroom. Erik kept staring to where she had been, staring through time.
A smart, well-spoken guy.
Listening to music no one could hear.
A secret poet.
Sometimes he’d go away, though…
Daisy came back, slid into bed. Threw the extra pillows on the floor and leaned to turn off the lamp.
“‘Night,” she whispered.
“I love you, goodnight,” he said.
A few cars passed outside.
The lamp made tinny clicks as it cooled.
Daisy inhaled and exhaled.
Erik picked up his head. “Wait a minute, you’re naked,” he said.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“That’s all up in your head. Sorry.”
He pulled at the covers. “No, I’m positive about this.”
“Oh really,” she said, laughing. “In the midst of your contemplative brooding you noticed I was naked?”
“Think you could sneak it past me?”
“In your current state of mind? Yes.”
“You have so much to learn.”
“HEY, MOM,” ERIK said.
“Hello, sweetie.”
“Can I talk to your boyfriend, please?”
“Fred?”
“You have another boyfriend I don’t know about?”
“What do you need him for?”
“I want to ask him his intentions with you.”
“What?”
“I’m kidding, Mom. I just need to ask him something.”
“All right, hold on… Fred, Erik needs to ask you something.”
Fred took the phone. “I know nothing,” he said. “I’m useless.”
“Daisy and I have a use for you,” Erik said.
“I can’t get you out of parking tickets or traffic court, I’m sorry.”
“Can you marry us?”
Silence on the other end.
“You there?” Erik said after a moment.
Silence.
“Fred?” Erik looked at Daisy and shrugged. “Hello?”
A scrabble as the phone switched hands. “What the hell did you say to him?” Christine said. “He’s crying.”
“I asked him if he would marry us.”
“Marry…you?”
“Yes. He’s a retired Pennsylvania Justice so he can officiate. At my
wedding. To Daisy. In Pennsylvania. So I am asking, would he marry us?”
Silence.
“Mom?” Erik rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Jesus Christ, now she’s crying. Mom. Would you stop?”
“Oh Erik,” Christine said, her voice choked. “You have no idea…”
He smiled. “I know, Mom.”
“You don’t. You don’t know what this means to him. And to me.”
“I do. It takes me a lot of years, but eventually I get it. Now will he?”
“Fred? Will you?”
Fred got back on, clearing his throat. “I’d be honored,” he said.
“You’re listed in the program that way, right? His Honor Fred Williamson?”
“It’s The Honorable Frederick T. Williamsen, punk. With an e-n. Get it right.”
It was a small wedding, sixty guests, but it was everyone and everything they loved. They wanted no grandiose staging, no ring bearers or flower girls. A simple ceremony with Lucky and Will standing up with them. And the father of the bride would not give her away.
“She was yours when you got me down from the roof,” Joe said.
More to the point, the bride and groom had gotten to this day together, goddammit, and they were walking down the goddamn aisle together.
Planning a wedding long-distance while trying to work full-time required massive amounts of organization and trust. Both of which they put in Francine’s hands. She took the large, logistic details in Pennsylvania while Erik and Daisy took care of smaller ones in Canada.
They picked gold bands. Né pour toi was engraved on the inside of Daisy’s. Née pour toi on the inside of Erik’s.
Born for you.
Daisy and Lucky shopped together for a dress. Will supervised Erik’s tux and all the finery was shipped down to La Tarasque. The little party—bride, groom, attendants and children—flew into Philadelphia the Thursday before the wedding.
Vivian would come if her schedule permitted. Mike Pettitte and his wife were definitely coming. The MacIntyres sent their regrets, but Kirsten and Trudy wouldn’t miss it.
Erik sat on the porch Friday afternoon, waiting for the Clayton clan. Squinting under the visor of his hand, looking for the dust cloud that signaled a car coming up the road. Listening for an engine the way a child would listen for sleigh bells on Christmas Eve. Finally they arrived.
Mike parked the rental. The back doors exploded open and two ladies got out. Both white-haired: one had a sharp pixie cut and the other a loose bun. Dressed nicely, looking around, pointing, admiring. And as Erik came down the porch steps and along the flagstone path, they caught hands and stared.
“Hello,” he said, stopping at the path’s edge.
They continued to stare. Mike and his wife hung back by the car, watching.
Erik held still, thinking, please don’t say I look like my father.
“Cripes,” the pixie-cut woman said. “Look at you.”
“Look at me,” he said, bracing himself.
“Unbelievable.” The woman with the bun shook her head, smiling. “You look just like your grandfather.”
The first woman put her hand on her heart. “Doesn’t he?”
The wind ruffled the sleek cap of her hair as she came toward Erik. Her eyes were pale blue. Familiar, but Erik couldn’t say how.
“I’m Aunt Trudy.”
“Of course you are,” Erik said.
“Do you remember us?” Kirsten asked.
“Not exactly,” he said, looking from one to the other. “But I hear I kicked your asses at poker.”
Trudy pointed a finger. “Young man, you owe me ten bucks. With interest.”
Kirsten laughed and held out her arms. “Come hug me before you get shaken down.”
During the rehearsal dinner, which was a casual barbecue at the farmhouse, Erik watched his mother chatting with Vivian, bantering with the two great aunts and howling with laughter when Mike told his stories about her wedding.
Erik’s heart swelled from the presence of his extended kin, and the hope he’d returned to Christine some small, joyful part of the past. To Pete as well, whom Erik spied taking a walk with Kirsten around the gardens, offering his arm or hand when the terrain got rough.
“The greatest aunt in the world,” Mike said, patting Erik’s shoulder as he passed by.
“We may need some bodies buried after this party,” Erik called after him.
Daisy came over, curled her hand around Erik’s upper arm and kissed the edge of his sideburn. “I’m so happy,” she said.
“Me, too,” Erik said, looking at Daisy’s brother Michel, chatting with Joe and Francine around the fire pit. Michel’s wife Anya was deep in conversation with Lucky, while their daughter Kiki was chasing Jack all over the gardens.
Later, when the guests had left and the kids were tucked in, the four friends sat on the porch, drinking the last of the wine.
“We have presents for you,” Daisy said, putting a gift bag on the wicker table. Lucky opened hers first and held up a pair of gorgeous diamond-and-pearl earrings. Tucked beneath was a little note, which Lucky read silently. She smiled. Nodded. Laughed out loud. And then caught Daisy’s hand in hers, sniffing.
“You,” she said.
“You,” Daisy said.
Erik took another box out of the gift bag and gave it to Will. “This is for you as my best man,” he said.
“Your only man,” Will said.
“But it’s also a token and symbol of our friendship. Which has no price. Blah blah blah. I love you. Dude.”
“Don’t tax yourself preparing a statement, Fish,” Lucky said.
“Good thing he’s not making the toast,” Will said, grinning as he opened the box. He looked down and the grin faded.
A long staring moment.
“What is it?” Lucky finally said.
“It’s a cock ring.”
Lucky laughed. “No, really. What is it?”
“No, really,” Will said, turning the box toward her. “It’s a cock ring.”
“A sterling silver cock ring,” Erik said. “Doubles as a bottle opener. Only the best for my best man.”
The girls were shrieking with laughter. Lucky folded in half, Daisy collapsed on the arm of her chair. Through the cackling, Will just stared at Erik. Erik crossed an ankle over the other knee, laced his hands behind his head and stared back.
“Do you know why I love you, Fish?” Lucky said, gasping.
“My impeccable taste in gifts?”
“You are the only one who can render Will speechless.”
Will slowly shook his head. He looked about to say something, then shook his head again, laughing softly.
“Did you engrave it?” Daisy asked Erik, running her fingertips under her eyes.
“I was going to but… Really, you give a guy a cock ring, what more is there to say?”
Will closed the box and set it down on the table. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
DAISY GOT READY IN her old bedroom. Erik used the carriage house to suit up, and it turned into an impromptu stag party. The photographer moved about on invisible feet, taking candid shots. Erik would frame one of the captured moments and keep it on top of his dresser at home. In it, Fred mixed gin and tonics while engaged in conversation with Miles Kelly. Mike, Joe, Pete and Will—all slicked out and looking sharp—stood around chatting while in the background, Kees Justi busied himself with Erik’s bowtie.
“I haven’t worn a tux since senior prom,” Erik said. “And it had a clip-on tie.”
“No protégé of mine shows up to his wedding in a clip-on.”
“Which is why I needed you here. Among other reasons.”
Kees’s eyes blinked as he folded and fussed and tied and made it perfect, pausing once to brush away tears.
“Knock it off,” Erik said.
“Sorry. You know me. The emotional hamburger. Hold still now.”
Erik held his head still and tugged at his cuffs. Will c
ame over and brushed his hands out across Erik’s shoulders, picked off an infinitesimal piece of lint, then crossed his arms and looked the groom up and down.
“Look all right?” Erik asked.
Will nodded. “You’re hot.”
“Isn’t he?” Kees said. “Telling you, Fish, whoever fit your tux knew what he was doing. Makes your ass look fabulous.”
“Fred, can I get another of those G and Ts,” Erik called.
Pete brought it over, clinked his glass with his brother’s and they drank. “You all right?” Pete said.
Erik nodded. “Can you hear me?”
Pete lightly grazed his knuckles on Erik’s cheekbone. “I always hear you.”
Miles came over with the small boutonnière of two daisies and pinned it to Erik’s lapel.
“If it weren’t for you,” Erik said, “I wouldn’t be living this truth. I’d be wandering around somewhere, clutching my pearls.”
Miles smiled and smoothed down the lapel. Then he reached in his pants pocket and into Erik’s hand he pressed what felt like a coin, but was a simple silver disc with the letter F on it. Erik looked up with wrinkled eyebrows.
“It’s a fuck,” Miles said. “I give it.”
Will’s phone beeped and he reached in his inside jacket pocket.
“Daisy’s coming down,” he said. “Drink up, Fish. Photographer’s waiting outside to capture the big moment.”
Erik took a last fortifying swallow amidst another round of smoothing, tugging and straightening. Through a gamut of handshakes, hugs and ass pats, he went down the stairs. Joe accompanied him as far as the door and gave him a last brushing off.
“That time I came back here with Daisy and you were stuck on the roof,” Erik said. “You knocked the ladder over on purpose, didn’t you? To make me feel better about my screw up.”
Joe smiled. “I wanted to level the playing field.”
Erik reached for one of his lapels and turned it out a little. Pinned to the inside was a Purple Heart. Joe had earned it in Vietnam and given it to Erik after the shooting.
“It’s what you do,” Erik said.
Joe’s hand patted Erik’s cheek. Tugged his earlobe. “It is, mon pote,” he said. “Now go find your bride.”
Erik stepped outside, his eyes squinting into the late sun, his heart starting to pound strong beneath his shirt studs.
Here to Stay Page 18
