by Dee Ernst
The door at the top of the stairs was open when I got there.
Walking in caught me off guard. The flood of memories engulfed me, and all I could do was stand in the middle of the dark, narrow room, trying not to cry.
“Jenna? In front.”
The back room had two small windows overlooking the alley. Sam had a table and a refrigerator there, as well as a tall dresser packed with his stuff. Sam liked stuff.
The front room was much different, three floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Main Street, a battered leather couch, a large flat-screen TV, and his bed in one corner. There were a couple of upholstered chairs with frayed arms and rump-sprung seats. And more bookshelves reaching up and full of things that had mattered to him: framed pictures and articles about the bar, souvenirs of his travels, gifts from friends, shells and pieces of driftwood.
Craig was standing by one of the windows, holding a book, carefully turning the pages. Standing in this space, Sam’s space, he was so much like his father my heart almost stopped.
“This is a first edition The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Did he know how valuable this is?”
I had to clear my throat. “He’d had it a long time. I remember when he got it, he was very proud of himself. Claims he stole it from a little old lady who didn’t know what she had. He may have been joking, but I wouldn’t have put it past him. He probably made it sound like he was doing her a big favor by taking it off her hands.”
He looked up at me. “Hey, you okay?”
I nodded. “Sure. I, well, I wasn’t expecting…I mean there are lots of memories here.”
He closed the book. “So the two of you stayed close?”
I had to keep myself from looking at the bed in the corner. “Yes. We became good friends.” I gestured to the TV. “We liked to watch old movies together. He loved the musicals. Fred and Ginger, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland. We’d drink beer and sing along.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It was. It was great. I always had a good time with your father. Except when he first came back, and I still hated his guts for leaving in the first place. But I got over it.” I shrugged. “What do you want to do?”
“Well, for now, strip the bed, clean up a bit, just look around. I don’t suppose there’s a whole lot that can get the girls in any kind of trouble.”
I went over to the table beside the bed and opened it. “Well, you might want to take Sam’s stash. And his rolling papers, and water pipe. And he had a small porn collection in that cabinet by the TV. And there’s a revolver here somewhere…maybe in the back room.”
Craig’s mouth dropped open. “His stash? And porn?”
I chuckled. “Your father was a child of the sixties. Well, the seventies anyway. He smoked a pipe when he was younger and gave it up, but he never gave up his cigars or his pot. And as for the porn…I believe he used to call them classics. I never watched with him, but he insisted they were very well done.”
Craig raised his eyebrows. “Wow. Okay then, I guess I didn’t know him all that well after all.”
I felt a sudden surge of anger. “We didn’t know him at all, Craig. He kept too many secrets. You can’t really know a person who keeps half of their life hidden away.”
“But you loved him.”
The anger fell away as quickly as it came, and I felt tears. “With all my heart. He ruined me for other men. He was…more than most men. Smarter and funnier, more curious. When he found something he liked, he went after it with everything he had. It was all or nothing with Sam. His collections became obsessions. When he cooked, there would be eight courses. When he went on a bender, he’d be still knocking down shots at dawn. When he made love to me, he wouldn’t let me leave the bed, wouldn’t let me sleep. For hours.” I stopped abruptly. I hadn’t meant to say that much. That had been just between Sam and I, those long and passionate nights together, and I was angry with myself for letting anyone, especially Sam’s son, even a glimpse of what we’d shared. I sniffed and closed my eyes. “I’m going to miss him forever.”
My shoulders started to shake, and I felt his arms around me, gentle, just holding me as I cried, big, ugly gulping sobs. I allowed myself those few moments, feeling the solid warmth and comfort of his body against mine, then pushed him away. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just being here.”
“I understand. You’re right. He was larger than life. I’m going to miss him, too.”
I wiped away the tears with trembling fingers. “I don’t know why I’m so emotional. Let’s get to work. Now, what do you want to keep?”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Well, all the first editions, I guess. I’d like to pack them up and get them out to the house. And these.” He crossed over to the bookshelf and picked up a framed article from several years ago, naming Sam’s on Main one of the ten best eateries on the Delmarva Peninsula. “Shouldn’t these be hung up downstairs? Maybe on the restaurant side?”
“I’d run that by Glory first.”
He raised his eyebrows. “True that. I’m running everything past Glory. I’ve got some boxes in the car. Let me bring them up.”
“Okay. What about his clothes? Donate? I know there are some of those giant black plastic bags here somewhere.”
“I spoke to the pastor on Sunday. She said she could use them in the thrift store,” he said. “I think that’s best, but if you have any other ideas, let me know.” Craig was gone.
I took a deep breath. My idea was to leave everything exactly as it was, but that was the squishy side of me, the side that made me do silly emotional things, like cry like a baby when I should have been over all this by now. I found the black bags and opened a dresser drawer, pulling out T-shirts and flannel shirts and stuffing them in the bag. At one point, I found myself holding a Grateful Dead T-shirt, one of his favorites, and thought about keeping it for myself. But did I need a physical reminder of him? Wasn’t the house that we’d shared haunted enough by his memory? No. I pushed it in with the rest. If I started saving his things for myself, I’d end up carrying half the apartment back home with me.
Craig came back, carrying a stack of cardboard boxes, went past me and into the living room.
We worked separately for over an hour. I filled three bags, went through the bookshelves and found his gun, unloaded, on top of a pile of National Geographic magazines. I carried it in to the front room, where Craig had packed all his boxes with books. I handed him the revolver without a word.
“What do I do with it?” he asked.
“I’d turn it in to the county sheriff. Explain who you are, what you were doing, and say you found the gun and don’t want it.”
He took it gingerly and dropped in on the top of a box of books.
“I’m going to take these down to the car and see if I can grab a few more boxes from the bar,” he said, and I followed him out, grabbing a huge bag of clothes.
We made three more trips, and I finally sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m done,” I told him.
“Glory said she was looking for more boxes.”
“Well, have fun with that. As far as I’m concerned, the place is now safe. We got rid of the gun, and the drugs and the porn…”
Craig nodded, looking thoughtful. “True. But what else should we be looking for? A blow-up sex doll?”
I wasn’t sure why, but that hit me as very funny, and I started to giggle. “I’m trying to remember if he ever had one of those.”
Craig started to smile. “Or maybe a still under the floorboards?”
“Or a portable meth lab?” By now I was laughing. Maybe I was crazy hormonal, but I could not stop. “Plastic explosives?”
He shook his head, laughing. “Plans for a nuclear bomb?” He staggered over to the bed and sat beside me, his shoulders shaking.
I fell back on the bed, eyes squeezed shut. “Blueprints for an underground missile silo?” I was laughing so hard, I could barely get the words out.
“So you’re saying he was really an international spy?
” he sputtered.
“Oh, God.” I opened my eyes, wiping the tears away. “Sam as a spy. Now, there’s an idea.”
He fell back on the bed. “It’s either that or a top-notch criminal mastermind.”
I turned my head to look at him. “That would make more sense.”
He turned over on his side, propping his head in his hand. “No. Spy. He wasn’t the law-breaking type.”
I snorted. “You obviously never saw him raging drunk, standing up in a golf cart, using his feet on the steering wheel to avoid running over the flags on the Bay Creek Golf Course.”
His smile faltered. “Was he raging drunk a lot?”
I bit my lower lip. “He was an alcoholic. Totally unapologetic and very high functioning. He knew exactly how much he could handle, which is why he could do his job and run the bar. But once in a while, he just let go. He’d do crazy stuff, reckless stuff. Luckily there was always someone with him to keep him from doing real harm.”
“You?”
“A few times. His main drinking buddy was Kenny Malcolm. Now, there’s a man who could tell you stories.”
“I think I’d rather not know.”
I sighed. “There would be good stories, too. Sam was a fine man. Just…flawed.”
Sam and I had lain like this, talking, not touching, sometimes for hours. Sam would find a topic and just start talking and I’d listen, drinking in every word, because to me there had been no music as sweet as the sound of his voice.
“He and I never talked about drinking,” Craig said. “He was glad when I joined AA, but said it wasn’t for him. He had his own way of coping, he said.”
“Which was not coping at all. He drank beer all night, every night. When he felt the need, he’d open a bottle of scotch and finish it all by himself.” I heard the anger in my voice as I stared up at the ceiling. “He always told me it was part of who he was, and I just had to accept it. And I did. But I never understood that part of him. And I hated what it did to him.”
“I’m sorry,” he said very softly. “You deserved better.”
I turned to face him. He looked so sad that something inside me twisted, a small sharp pain. I reached out and touched his cheek.
And then I kissed him. I know that, in my mind, I wanted to comfort this man, who had just spent the past few hours going through a part of his father’s life that he’d never imagined. I wanted him to know it was okay to feel sad, to feel regret. And I didn’t want him to stop loving Sam just because of what he now knew.
That’s what I wanted to do. Instead, the kiss immediately became more, because he was kissing me back, and there was nothing soft or comforting about it.
This was nothing like the flighty fantasies I’d been having about him. This was very real, and I felt a surge of want and heat and needing more. I opened my mouth to him and moved my body against his, and there was a sudden rush, hands moving, bodies turning, and I felt his fingers against my skin as I tugged at the buttons of his shirt, twisting against him, wrapping my leg around his hip…
“Hey, Craig? I found more boxes.”
I threw myself away from him, practically falling off the bed, and bounded to my feet. I tugged my T-shirt back down. My hair had fallen from its topknot, and I tried to smooth the wild tangled mess with both hands.
Glory came through the door, carrying a cardboard box in each hand. I glanced back at Craig. He was standing by the window, tucking in his shirt, his back to me.
“I got more,” she said, setting them down. “Should I bring them up?”
Craig turned around, shaking his head and looking completely calm. “I’ll get them, Glory. Thanks. We’re almost done here, anyway. Right Jenna?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes. I, ah, was just on my way out.”
Glory put her hands on her broad hips and tilted her head. “You should wear your hair down more often, honey. Makes you look so much prettier. Don’t you think so, Craig?”
He stared at me, his eyes expressionless, then nodded. “Yes. I do think so.”
“So listen, Craig? I’ll drop those bags of clothes down at the church.”
He nodded again. “Sounds good. Thanks.”
“And I guess I’ll see you back at the house. Good. Okay then. Bye.” I practically ran out, grabbing my keys off the coffee table, shooting down the stairs, and out into the open air.
Stella looked up as I burst through the door. The store was empty. Thank God.
“What happened?”
I was still shaking. “Craig and I were clearing out some things at Sam’s apartment.”
She put her arms around me and hugged. “Oh, Jenna, that must have been so hard for you.”
“It was awful. I cried and packed up his clothes, and then I kissed Craig.”
She dropped her arms and gave me a very hard, cold look. “What?”
“And he kissed me back, and we probably would have had monkey sex right there on Sam’s bed if Glory hadn’t interrupted.”
“Well, thank you, Glory. Are you crazy? Jenna, you do not even know that man, and have you considered the idea that maybe, just maybe, you’re seeing Craig as a substitute for Sam?”
“Of course I’ve considered it,” I shot back. “That’s why I’m feeling like total crap right now, even as I’m thinking I really wanted to see us both naked.”
“Oh, honey, you need to step back and take a really hard look at this situation.”
I sagged against her counter. “Stella, I don’t know what to do. I was seriously thinking of taking all my vacation, going somewhere very far from here, and hope he’d be gone by the time I got back.”
“That sounds like an excellent idea.”
“Yeah, except that I only have three weeks, and that doesn’t seem like a very suitable timeframe.”
“Maybe you could move out?”
I nodded. “Yes, I thought about that, too. But what would I do about the dogs? And the goats? Not to mention my garden, and, Stella, that is my home.”
She folded her arms around her waist, her fingers drumming against her arm. “He was a willing participant, I gather?”
“Well, yes.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, I kissed him first, but he kissed me back.”
“Listen, honey, maybe you both need to get laid, and if that’s the case, well, fine. You’re both adults. But if you’re confusing the feelings you had about Sam with feelings for Craig, somebody could get hurt, and I have a feeling that Craig has been hurt enough.”
“I know.”
“Well, it looks like the two of you need to have a serious conversation.”
I almost gagged. “You know how I feel about that sort of crap.”
“Yes. I also know that for the past twenty years that I’ve known you, you have not had one healthy, normal romantic relationship with any man. Except, maybe, your ex-husband. Which, I gotta tell you, was not such a good thing for you. Could be having a serious conversation with any of those men, even the totally unsuitable ones like Kenny Malcolm, would have made a difference.”
I turned and slid down the front of her counter until I was sitting on the floor, legs straight in front of me. I leaned my head back. “Can I just stay here?”
She shook her head and made a tsk-tsk kind of noise. “No, you may not. You can get up, put on your big girl panties and deal with this like a grown-up. The sooner the better.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being right?”
“No.”
I saw, from my vantage point on her floor, Craig’s Suburban drive down Main Street. He was probably heading for the house, which meant if I followed him, we could be alone and have a serious talk, just the two of us, and figure out what had just happened between us and decide what to do about it.
Or maybe, I could just follow him onto the house, take off all my clothes, and surprise him while he was sorting first editions.
“This is hard,” I wailed.
“Life is hard,” Stella said. “Get you
r skinny ass off my floor and go live it.”
When I got to the house, the back of the Suburban was up. I got out, grabbed a box of books, and carried it in the house.
He was sitting in the living room, just sitting there, looking down at the box he’d carried in. Finn jumped off the couch and came over to say hello, but I didn’t even pet him. I dropped the box, and Craig jumped, looked at me, and looked away.
“Look, I’m really sorry,” I began. “That was a mis—”
“It won’t happen again,” he said woodenly. He still didn’t look at me. He was staring at the floor. “It was an emotional place for the both of us. I’m sure you were feeling vulnerable, and missing him, and I was a very handy substitute.”
I started to shake my head. “No, Craig—”
“I get it, and it’s fine but it’s over.” He finally lifted his eyes and looked at me. I felt my stomach start to churn, seeing the anger and the hurt there.
“That’s not what that was about,” I said. “And you did kiss me back.”
“You’re an attractive woman,” he said coldly. “But it won’t happen again. You were my father’s wife.”
There was silence. Finn paced back and forth between us, his nails making little tapping noises on the floor.
Okay I got it. It was awkward, and maybe embarrassing, but did he really have to be such a total dick about it? I clenched my jaw. I had a bad habit of saying exactly what was on my mind, and had discovered, the hard way, that sometimes I was better off not saying anything at all. Right now, I wanted to tell him that even though he looked like his father, he was very much not like him at all, and that whatever caused me to kiss him in the first place was not just about looking for him to take Sam’s place. I wanted to tell him that I liked him, even though he was a little too serious for my taste, and I respected the job he was doing as a single dad. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t mind him and his daughters at the house at all. In fact, I was almost getting used to them, even if it did mean I couldn’t walk around in my underwear anymore.
