The kitchen was large, almost ridiculously so; but then the whole house seemed overlarge and always had. Dating to the 1890s, high on Quality Hill overlooking the downtown, the white-trimmed, gray-frame two-story with its quaintly covered porch had been the family home for Karen and her parents. Not only had Karen grown up here, but so had Krista, who like her mother had been an only child.
The place, with its lovely old woodwork, hardwood floors, and ornate wood-burning fireplaces, retained much of its historic look down to the leaded-and-stained-glass windows, pocket doors, and walk-up attic. The latter Keith thought could be remodeled into a good study or home office, but with so much space here — and just his daughter and himself to rattle around in it — that seemed excessive.
He’d met Krista’s mother at the University of Dubuque in 1981. He was studying criminal justice; Karen was an elementary education major. The joke was, he was such a big kid and she such a sneaky little devil that they made a good fit. And she was on the small side, five three, and brunette, while he was a sturdy six-footer, with a head of blond hair worthy of a surfer here in farm country.
That hair now was thin as hell on top, and he had a slight gut that his exercise bike was not interested in doing anything about — of course he wasn’t terribly interested in the bike, either. All his life he’d been told he almost resembled Paul Newman, thanks to those sky-blue eyes of his; but the emphasis was frequently on the “almost.”
Karen had never looked like anybody but Karen, and that had been fine with him. Her big brown eyes, her dark curly hair, which she’d worn so big in the ’80s, had seemed just right to him. She wasn’t skinny, either, which he liked, but she’d fought with her weight until the cancer had brought it back down, last year. Ironic that for a few months she had been the slender girl he’d fallen for, as the real woman she’d become slipped away.
He’d lived in this house before, for the first dozen years of their marriage, after Karen’s parents retired to Florida, generously making the young couple a wedding gift of the family home. For those first twelve years, Keith had driven to his job in Dubuque, starting in uniform, rising to detective. But when he landed the demanding Chief of Detectives role six years ago — making even a half-hour commute impractical — they’d gone looking on the other side of the river and found a perfect little ’50s-era ranch-style on Marion Street.
They’d handed this big old place over to Krista, who’d still been living there — their daughter had commuted to Dubuque University to study criminal justice, much as Keith had, years before — when Krista landed the job as clerk-dispatcher on the Galena PD.
He stirred breadcrumbs into the meat-and-onion mixture. He wondered why the tag sale hadn’t hurt more. Of course he hadn’t been present for it — just walked away and later took the check from the auction house gal. But he hadn’t wanted most of the furniture and none of Karen’s clothing or jewelry, even the wedding rings. After he had Krista take whatever she wanted, all he held on to of theirs were the photos, a few framed, others in photo albums Karen put together.
Of his things, Keith packed up his clothes, a cardboard box of DVDs (mostly westerns — cop movies just irritated him), and another box of some books. When they’d moved to Dubuque, not so long ago really, he’d stored a lot of things here at the old homestead, as they archly referred to it. Now, after seeing what Krista had done with some of that stuff, unboxing it and salting it around to make him feel at home, he wished he’d gotten rid of that crap in the first place.
The move — moving in here — had been sudden.
Since Karen’s passing — no, he wouldn’t let himself say it that way...
Since the goddamn cancer killed Karen, he hadn’t once taken the twenty-minute trip to Galena to see his daughter. She was busy with that demanding job of hers (which made him damn proud), so they had started having Sunday supper together on Marion Street. He would cook, and she would pop corn and they’d watch one of the westerns, or maybe sports if some event they both had an interest in was on.
Usually, neither father nor daughter was talkative. They both had Danish reticence in the blood. He liked to think they were so comfortable together that they didn’t have to say much. But sometimes he feared the opposite was true.
Fathers and offspring who were much alike often had a hard go of it, he’d found.
Anyway, the Sunday evening before last, he’d been in the wood-paneled den of the ranch-style, selecting a DVD from the shelves of the stand under the small flat-screen TV. He was on his knees doing that when she came in, all chipper, with a big bowl of popcorn and two smaller empty ones; she was in dark blue leggings, a lighter blue tunic-style sweatshirt, and her bare feet. She put the popcorn and bowls down on the end table separating the old sofa from his recliner, then she went back out again, returning less than two minutes later with bottles of the Carlsberg Export beer they both loved.
He selected Rio Bravo and put the disc in the machine. Then he turned to go to his recliner, where the remote waited with his popcorn and beer on the end table. He stood staring at the recliner, as if the dark fake leather of it were fascinating.
“Pop?” she asked.
She always called him that. One of the few detective series he got a kick out of was the corny old Charlie Chan flicks, which he also had on DVD. Ever since they watched those together, she had (like Charlie Chan’s various sons) called him “Pop” (and on rare occasions, “Papa”).
She sat forward, the popcorn bowl in her lap. “Something wrong, Pop?”
“I was just thinking,” he said absently, still looking at the chair. “About the last time I sat down here.”
“Why’s that?”
“No reason. Well. Last time I sat there... which was just this afternoon... never mind.”
Now she leaned forward so far that the popcorn spilled a little. “What is it, Pop?”
He laughed. “I must have sat there an hour.”
“Watching something or what?”
“No. No. It’s just... it’s a long time to have your gun in your mouth.”
They hadn’t watched Rio Bravo. They didn’t even eat their popcorn. They did stay in the den, but on the couch. He did something he hadn’t recalled ever doing in front of his daughter, even at the funeral. He wept.
“This house,” he said, after a while. “It’s full of her. I thought that would be a good thing. But it’s not.”
“You had some wonderful years here.”
“Yes, but all the memories, all the ghosts, are of her last six months.”
Her voice took on a firmness that sounded spookily like her mother’s, in certain situations, like when he was being an ass. “You’re moving in with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“This isn’t a discussion, Papa. You’re moving in with me. This house will sell fast, and you know how much room I have. It’s lonely in that big old place.”
“I’d just be underfoot.”
“I said it was big, didn’t I? You can reclaim your study. I never moved out of my room. Your and Mom’s bedroom is waiting.”
She paused, maybe thinking that was the wrong thing to say.
“Or maybe the guest room,” he said, already capitulating. “But those aren’t the kind of memories, ghosts that would bother me. Everything in that house was positive. Mostly things were positive here. But those last six months...”
He began to weep again and hated himself for it. Not as long this time. And her arm around him did feel good.