He pulled the big box out of the truck and they ran up the steps. Paul gestured toward the mailbox. “Mind explaining the box? And those balloons?”
“You’re crashing a baby shower.”
Inside the house, they found Matt and Andrea holding court in front of the fireplace, a fire burning, a dozen other people floating like confetti around the room along with wrapping paper, paper plates, and yellow-cake debris.
“Sorry we’re late,” Nina said, helping Paul to arrange the box within Andrea’s reach.
Her younger brother, Matt, and his wife, Andrea, were expecting a third child. Andrea had been married once before and had a child during that marriage, so this would be Matt’s second biological child. Since they already had Troy and Brianna, they didn’t require one sex or the other, feeling free to root for a different sex each day depending on where whim led them, although Nina imagined Matt probably wanted a son of his own. Wasn’t that hardwired, wanting a child of your own sex? When dreaming about another universe, Nina occasionally imagined a sister for Bob, a daughter for herself.
Matt ran a tow business in winter and took tourists parasailing in summer. Nina made sure he carried heavy insurance. He made sure his equipment met tip top safety standards and groaned about the bureaucracy.
Andrea worked part time at the local women’s shelter. Matt and Andrea were Nina’s best friends. Complicated, loving, loyal people, they had built a true marriage. Matt disapproved of Nina’s profession even more than her father did, but most of the time he kept his mouth shut about it.
Matt put a beer in Paul’s hand. Paul sat beside him and drank thirstily.
Andrea pointed at Nina’s large box. “What did you bring baby?”
“This is more for the parents.”
Andrea pushed her curly red hair back from her face and went at the present with a pair of scissors. “I know I should save pretty paper but screw it,” she said. “Oh, Nina! Wow! Wonderful! You remembered how I used to rave about these things.” She went over to Nina and gave her a kiss.
“I remembered it was the most-used present I ever got.”
Someone turned on some music, Burl Ives singing “The Little White Duck.” Someone popped champagne and someone else sang along in a pleasing baritone. Children shouted, marauding through the room in bursts.
While Paul, Andrea, and Matt took turns making a mess out of assembling the automatic rocking baby chair, Nina squatted on the floor, remembering baby Bobby swinging away in the dead of night all those years before, his bright eyes wide open, his soft-spun hair, silent as long as the rocker moved. During those long nights of his infancy, she had sat up with him, looking out her window, at peace.
Her mother had given her the baby chair. Funny she had forgotten that. She thought more often of her mother lately, maybe because lately there was always that idea about moving to Carmel with Paul oscillating like static in the background of her mind. The thought came: She would be closer to her aging father if she lived with Paul in Carmel. She would be closer to her mother’s grave.
Later, Paul headed for his hotel room at Caesars alone and Nina and Bob drove home at eleven o’clock, beat. “Uh oh,” Bob said as they swung onto Pioneer Trail. “I forgot something.”
“What?”
“I have an essay due tomorrow.”
“Oh, Bob, no. You shouldn’t have gone to the party.”
“A bunch of kids were gonna be there, Mom. Aunt Andrea asked me and Troy to play games with them and keep them out of the living room.”
“I’ll write you a note.”
“Ha, ha. Make me laugh. ‘Bob had to go to a party.’ How long since you were in school, Mom? I’m dead. Forget it.”
They argued about this until Nina gave in. Back at the cabin, they dialed into the Internet and looked for anything they could find about Thomas Dewing, a nineteenth-century artist.
“He paints women to look like pieces of furniture, Mom.”
“How insightful of him. I feel like a broken-down footstool at this very moment. Can we go to bed now?”
But Bob’s research had woken him up. He had other ideas. “Mom? Sometimes I miss my dad. I wonder what it would be like. To have two parents in the same place. I mean, that party. A new baby and everything and all of them together.”
Instantly, a gap opened in her heart. She thought of the men in her life. Kevin Cruz, the father about to lose his children. Jack, Bob’s absent ex-stepfather, and Kurt, his biological father, so far away in Germany. How confusing it must seem to him. How lonely. “Call Kurt,” she urged. “It’s morning in Wiesbaden by now. You’ll probably catch him at home. But make it short, it’s late.”
Bob made the call, spending nearly an hour on the phone. He would be so tired in the morning. She would set her alarm early to make sure he had enough time to wake up and get rolling. Listening from her bedroom to his pauses and happy laughs, she reminded herself that rates after eleven were the best they would be.
When she heard the thunk of the phone returning to its cradle, she went into Bob’s room to say good night to him and kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks for letting me call him,” he said, his voice thick with fatigue. “Sometimes I get low.”
The words struck like a whip. She said, “Everyone does, honey. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sometimes I feel alone. You work so hard.”
“Is there anything special you want to talk about?” She thought of Nikki. She hadn’t had time to think about Nikki and Bob. “Is everything all right at school?”
“Same as usual.”
“Are your friends doing all right? Taylor? Nikki?”
“Screwed up, as usual.”
“Then what do you feel low about?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Paul and me? Is that bothering you? Do you want to-”
“Things were easier before. It’s more tangled up now. I want to get to know my dad better, but he’s so far away and I live here with you. I want to stay on your good side, but you don’t like my friends. You need me, so does he.”
“I do need you, Bob.”
“But he needs me in a different way. You need me to stay your little kid.”
“But, Bob, you are still a kid.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m a man.”
“What?” Nina said. She was too tired to deal with that one.
“G’night.” He closed his eyes.
“Good night, honey.”
She managed to brush her teeth and throw water on her face before climbing into bed. Could it possibly still be Monday? She checked her watch, the modern curse, again.
No. Tuesday had arrived. Maybe she’d get a chance to breathe.
But then she remembered what T-Bone Walker said about Stormy Monday:
… Tuesday’s just as bad…
11
P AUL PROPELLED A LEG from the Mustang and then a small Styrofoam cup full of espresso he was holding, lid askew. Then the rest of him slid out and straightened up. Not one drop spilled, not that the asphalt of the Starlake Building parking lot would have suffered. The air had that peculiar late-summer Sierra quality of being both crisp and warm at the same time. He checked his watch, saw that it was one minute to nine, and leaned back against the car, planning to spend the entirety of that minute with his face turned to the sun and his eyes closed.
A large indeterminate-model brown car-who made brown cars and why did anyone buy them?-pulled up sedately beside him. Wish Whitefeather was in the driver’s seat and Sandy sat in the passenger’s seat, spine straight, purse in her lap. Paul saw with a small start that both Wish and his mother had the same profile, strong brow ridge and nose, beetling brows. As Wish turned off the ignition, they both turned toward him. Sandy said, “It’s you.”
Paul bowed and opened the door for her. “And how is my favorite Washoe maiden?” he said.
“Don’t think that’s gonna gain you any points.” Sandy gathered her coat around her. Paul had noticed that she often wore her coat outdoors, even on warm summer days. Heaving herself out of the car, she brushed out the coat crinkles and adjusted herself while Paul shut the door. “Well, speak up,” Sandy demanded. “How was the drive?”