Chapter 2

That was a week ago. You're pretty much caught up now. There I am on the phone. He's called because he wants me to come to his wedding. It took me a week of serious thought on the issue, and I'd already decided, but I was making him ask. A part of you just wants to know if that person who ought to care, really does. I was going to go. It was already decided. But I was pausing, really, just for effect.

"OK. I'll come." Then I added for good measure: "But I'm not happy about this." A counter-pause on his end. Like a showdown with unloaded guns.

"I really love her," was what he said. His voice was sincere, if not sounding somewhat downtrodden. So that was that. We hung up, and I put things in order to make the two-hour trip north. Which wasn't much considering I was in high school.

When Friday rolled around, I started getting a wrenching feeling in my gut. Something that rang of nausea, but laced with raw hesitancy. The past and future were like tectonic plates writhing over one another. You could say an earthquake was a-brewing.

My father's house was spotless. And I knew. So, when he tried to carefully mention that she would be officially moving in that weekend, I tried not to seem surprised. Come to think of it though, wouldn't he already live with her? I asked him. He said he'd been staying at her place on and off. She lived north an hour's drive in Flagstaff, where he'd been doing a job. That was quite like my father, always about simplicity.

Oh, by the way, it's worth noting that this was wife #5. At his worst, he reminded me of an umbilical cord, ever attached, draining sustenance from those around him. Shit, even at his best, he was a... phone charger. Let's say it was like 'coming in every so often for a juice-me-up'.

That evening I threw my overnight bag on my bed. Except for a shirt I hung up to keep free of wrinkles, I didn't bother to unpack. Normally, I was ritualistic. Go straight to my room, first thing. Unpack my toothbrush and toothpaste, my comb, cologne, deodorant. Put them in the bathroom. Then I'd take my weekend's worth of clothes out and hang the shirts in the closet. Stuff the drawers with jeans and a few changes of underwear.

I sat on my bed. Four months had lapsed since my last being here. They say at sixteen time seems to hurtle by like a freight train. Close. It's more like a train without any freight. Faster. The room my father kept for me, wasn't mine. Or it was, but damned if it didn't feel more like a hotel room. I settle back against the pillows. They had retained the same dent in the very center where I always plopped my head. I tried to picture the house with a woman in it. A different woman. A woman who was not my mother. A woman with no face. As if on cue, I heard a car pull into the driveway. A stream of light briefly and rudely shone through the windows. It spilled over the walls as if competing with the dull overhead light I'd always liked; the only thing unchanged in my memory. Just as I heard footfalls on the porch, I glanced over and noticed a deflated air bed, folded up in the far corner of the room. Something wasn't right.

Their kisses were a quick exchange. Nervous. 'Someone's watching us, ' those kisses said. 'Oh, the boy.' Both my father and the no longer faceless, soon-to-be stepmother turned awkwardly. Her posture stank of expectance. I could smell cigarettes on the air she brought through the entryway.

"You must be—"

"Hey, how are you?" I extended my hand, faster than I'd meant to. Damn, who was the nervous one? Her hands were warm, and soft. Softer than my mother's. I felt my lip curl slightly. I took my hand back and rubbed it with my other, hoping to cover up any undo motions. I felt as see-through as cellophane.

"It really is very nice to meet you," she said, holding my eyes. That was the second time she had stated so. When someone throws a REALLY and then a VERY into so short a declaration, they're overdoing it a bit.

We adjourned to the kitchen, where my father had been heating the stove. Some things you never forget, and based on the various spices that seemed huddled near the skillet on the stove top, I posited it was about to be burger night. My father had taken the two bags the future Mrs. was carrying and disappeared down the hall toward his bedroom. Their bedroom. The moment left to she and I was made of an ear-popping silence. Something like what might occur inside a sealed casket, or so I imagine. Curiously, it was I who attempted to break it.

"So—" I began, pawing the precipice for footing. "What do you... do?"

"I'm with the board of education." My father waltzed back into the kitchen.

"Head of the Board," he amended. Had he taken a drink of something? His air was suddenly feather light. The soon-to-be smiled, shyly.

"Well, yes. As of March." Her eyes darted between my father and me. I've never been called mediumistic, but I knew before she said it.

"You look so much like your father." There it was. Of course, it was true. Both of us with that thick dark brown hair that swirled around and lay flat over our hard set eyebrows. Our jaws were a lot alike, too. People say you can't see that about someone you've got it in common with, but I could. I liked to think I had a strong jaw, like my father. But of everything, the similarities cascaded at the nose. Pardon the expression, but we shared a nose like a prostitute shares a hotel room. Without question.

"So, that's where I met your father..." she was saying. My father was city treasurer. He'd been elected as the same time as she. They'd met at the first convening of the town council, and by the third they were a pair. Regular turtle doves, these two.

"But wait," I said, remembering something. "Don't you live in Flagstaff?" She and my father shot one another a cautious glance. I absolute hate it when adults do that. It's as if they're sending morse over you're head and all you get is ::Beeep. Beep. Beeep. Beep. Beep::

"I did," she began, carefully. "Until quite recently, when my husband and I..." this could be interesting. But instead of going on in that vein, she changed course. "My daughter still lives there with her father, but..." and again. Wow, the woman changed course more than a deaf kid playing Marco Polo.

"... he has custody," was how she chose to finish. Yeah. I was lost, too. What I got out of it was that she and my father had started seeing one another before her marriage had completely dissolved with this other guy. It sounded like there was a kid involved. How fortunate for those of us who can relate. Maybe she'd lost custody because of my father. Ouch. Wouldn't that be some drama?

I suddenly got this mental image five years into the future. She's standing at my father's door, bags in hand, bratty daughter in tow. 'This is all your fault! If you hadn't seduced me, I wouldn't have lost custody of my daughter!' If only. I sighed. If only.

Just like that though, the look on her face washed away. She was quickly as happy as a two-peckered puppy. She beamed at my dad. My moment was obviously lost.

"... and she ought to be coming in any moment," she was saying, when I tuned back in. I do that a lot. Tune out. It can't be helped. Back in reality, she was talking about her daughter, and had turned her body to face the door in certain expectance. Just like that, the door knob turned and the door opened a smidgen. A face poked through. The eyes seemed to look about skeptically, in search of something it seemed to have already predetermined not to find inside.

"Is this it?" The girl pushed through the door, and dropped a heavy black Samsonite suitcase on the floor.

"Lil, come here. I'd like you to meet Jeffery's son." My cue to summon a smile, or something warm that might suggest I'd like to make someone's acquaintance. Oh wait, no. Sorry. No smile. I stared blankly at the girl. Her shoulder-length brown hair twisted and jiggled on her head. It seemed to be suffering. Rejecting the harsh new environment or something. She was swimming in an old faded brown knit-sweater. Her mother shot me a quick glance, as if I were the Duke of Giva Damn.

"Her grandfather's sweater. Awful thing. She just can't be parted. Lil, come on in." Her cheeks were red flashy bulbs like Christmas tree ornaments. It looked as if she'd been out in the cold too long. Which seemed likely considering I hadn't heard a car engine. As she approached I had to turn away for fear of bursting out laughing. The sweater must have either been stretched to its limit or her grandfather was a whale, as the sleeves could have made up two more lengths of her arms. They hung like Slinky's nearly down to her knees, and instead of pulling them up she permitted the sleeves to drape.