He’d jerked her off balance-he hoped in more ways than one-so her hands braced on his shoulders. She didn’t shy back or pull away, but sank in. Not surrender, but like a woman who chose to enjoy.
“No seduction,” he said with his mouth an inch from hers. “I don’t welch on a deal, so this is straight-out. We can keep dancing around this, or we can go upstairs.”
“You’re right. That’s definitely not seduction.”
“You named the terms,” he reminded her. “If you want to change them-”
“No, no. A deal’s a deal.” This time her mouth took his, just as hot, just as greedy. “And while I do like to dance, it’s…” She trailed off at the knock on the door. “Why don’t I see who that is? You probably need a moment or two to… settle down.”
And so, Cybil thought as she walked out of the kitchen, did she. She had no objections to jumping into the deep end of the pool. She was, after all, a skilled and sensible swimmer. But it didn’t hurt to take a couple of good, head-clearing breaths first, then decide if she wanted to jump into this particular pool at this particular time.
She took one of those breaths and opened the door. It took her a moment to recognize the man she’d seen a few times in the bowling center. She thought again that Gage favored his mother, as there was no resemblance she could see between father and son.
“Mr. Turner, I’m Cybil Kinski.” He stood, Cybil thought, looking embarrassed, and a little scared. His hair had gone thin and gray. He had Gage’s height, but a scrawnier build. It would be the years of drinking, she assumed, that had dug the lines in his face and webbed the broken capillaries over it. His eyes were a watered-down blue that seemed to struggle to meet hers.
“Sorry. I thought if Gage was here, I could…”
“Yes, he is. Come in. He’s back in the kitchen. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll-”
“He won’t be staying.” Gage’s voice was brutally neutral when he stepped in. “You need to go.”
“If I could have just a minute.”
“I’m busy, and you’re not welcome here.”
“I asked Mr. Turner in.” Cybil’s words dropped like stones into the deep well of silence. “So I’ll apologize to both of you. And I’m going to leave you alone to deal with each other. Excuse me.”
Gage didn’t so much as glance at her as she walked back toward the kitchen. “You need to go,” he repeated.
“I just got some things to say.”
“That’s not my problem. I don’t want to hear them. I’m living here for now, and as long as I am, you don’t come around here.”
Bill’s jaw tightened; his mouth firmed. “I put this off since you came back to town. I can’t put it off anymore. You give me five minutes, for Chrissake. Five minutes, and I won’t bother you no more. I know you only come around the bowling center when I’m off. You hear me out, I’ll make myself scarce anytime you want to come in, see Cal. I won’t come around you, you got my word.”
“Because your word always meant so much?”
Color came and went in Bill’s face. “It’s all I got. Five minutes, and you’re rid of me.”
“I’ve been rid of you.” But Gage shrugged. “Take your five.”
“Okay then.” Bill cleared his throat. “I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been sober five years, six months, and twelve days. I let drink take over my life. I used it as an excuse to hurt you. I should’ve looked after you. I should’ve taken care of you. You didn’t have nobody-anybody else, and I made it so you had nobody.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard. “I used my hands and my fists and my belt on you, and I’da kept using them if you hadn’t gotten big enough to stop me. I made you promises, and I broke them. Over and over again. I wasn’t no kind of father to you. I wasn’t no kind of man.”
His voice wavered, and he looked away. While Gage said nothing, Bill took several audible breaths, then looked back into his son’s face. “I can’t go back and change that. I could tell you I’m sorry from now until the day I die, and it won’t make up for it. I’m not going to promise you I won’t drink again, but I’m not going to drink today. When I wake up tomorrow, I’m not going to drink. That’s what I’m going to do, every day. And every day I’m sober, I know what I did to you, how I shamed myself as a man, and as a father. How your ma must’ve looked down and cried. I let her down. I let you down. I’ll be sorry for that the rest of my life.”
Bill took another breath. “I guess that’s what I had to say. ’Cept, you made yourself into something. You did that on your own.”
“Why?” If this would be the last time they faced each other, Gage wanted the answer to the single question that had haunted him most of his life. “Why did you turn on me that way? Drinking was the excuse. That’s a true thing. So why?”
“I couldn’t take the belt to God.” Emotion gleamed in Bill’s eyes, and though his voice wavered, he continued on. “I couldn’t beat God with my fists. But there you were. Had to blame someone, had to punish someone.” Bill looked down at his hands. “I wasn’t anything special. I could fix things, and I didn’t mind hard work, but I wasn’t anything special. Then she looked at me. Your ma, she made me a better man. She loved me. I’d wake up every morning, go to bed every night amazed that she was there, and she loved me. She… I got a couple minutes left of my five, right?”
“Finish it then.”
“You oughta know… She was-we were-so happy when she got pregnant with you. You probably don’t remember how it was… before. But we were happy. Cathy… Your ma had some problems with the pregnancy, and then it happened so fast, you coming. We didn’t even get to the hospital. You come out of her heading up the pike in the ambulance.”
Bill glanced away again, but this time-whether Gage wanted to see it or not-it was grief vivid in those faded blue eyes. “And there were some problems, and the doctor, he said there shouldn’t be any more kids. That was okay, that was fine with me. We had you, and, Jesus, you looked just like her. I know you don’t remember, but I loved you both more’n anything in the world.”
“No,” Gage said when Bill stopped. “I don’t remember.”
“I guess you wouldn’t. After a while, she wanted another. She wanted another baby so bad. She’d say: Look, Bill, look at our Gage. Look what we made. Isn’t he beautiful? He needs a brother or sister. And well, we started another, and she was careful. She took such good care of herself, did everything the doctor said, and no complaint. But it went wrong. They came and got me from work, and…”
He pulled out a bandanna, mopped at tears without any sign of shame. “I lost her, and the little girl we’d tried to make. Jim and Frannie, Jo and Brian, they helped all they could. More than most would. I started drinking, just a little here and there to get through, to get by. But it wasn’t enough, so I drank more, and more yet.”
His eyes dry again, he shoved the cloth back in his pocket. “I started thinking how it was my fault she died. I should’ve gone and gotten myself fixed, and not told her, that’s all. She’d be alive if I had. Then that hurt too much, so I’d drink some more. Till I started thinking how she’d be alive if we hadn’t had you. Hadn’t had you, whatever messed her up inside wouldn’t be, and she’d still be there when I woke in the morning. Blaming you didn’t hurt so much, so I talked myself into seeing that as God’s truth instead of a damned lie. Everything was your fault. Lost my job because I was drunk, but I turned that around so I lost my job because I had to look after you on my own. Anything went wrong, it was because of you, then I could drink some more, whale on you, and I wouldn’t have to face the truth.
“There was nobody to blame, Gage.” He let out a long sigh. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Things just went wrong, and she died. And when she died, I stopped being a man. I stopped being your daddy. What was left of me, your ma, she’d never have looked at twice. So that’s the why. That’s the long way around the why. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking you to forget. I’m just asking for you to believe that I know what I did, and I’m sorry for it.”