Guilt made my shoulders sag, but once again, he misinterpreted my reaction. Now he felt sorry for bringing on a moment of sadness.
“C’mon. Let’s go get some lunch. You drive,” he added, which surprised me.
“We’re not going in Black Beauty?” He was never comfortable with me driving his truck. He said it was a one-man horse.
“No. What’s the point in having a built-in chauffeur if I don’t use her?”
“Don’t make me nervous,” I warned, and we started for the garage. “Charley’s?” I asked when I started the car.
“No. I need a day off from those guys. Take me someplace new.”
I wanted to avoid any of the places my friends might go to, so I dr
ove us to a restaurant I recalled Mrs. Osterhouse mentioning once. My father was quite surprised but also looked a little pleased.
“You’ve been to the Dew Drop Inn? I thought it was only for members of the AARP. It’s the only place that serves prune juice in warm water,” he joked.
“Never, but I thought you’d appreciate the peace and quiet.”
Still smiling, he shrugged. When we entered, he probably immediately thought that I had planned it. There was Mrs. Osterhouse with one of her neighbors, Lilly Taylor, seated at a corner table. She had obviously had her burgundy hair cut and styled over the weekend. I had to admit to myself that she looked much more attractive than usual, even younger. Perhaps unfairly, I never liked to think of Mrs. Osterhouse as being a pretty woman, but she did have extraordinary Irish green eyes, which made sense since her maiden name was O’Brian. Actually, I didn’t know all that much about her. From the moment I had sensed her feelings for my father and her sometimes not-so-subtle pursuit of him, a wall dropped between me and her. No matter how sweet she was to me, and she was, I couldn’t help being cold and formal with her. If I told Kane any of this, he would surely accuse me of having an Electra complex.
I couldn’t help my feelings toward her, but I knew they were wrong. After all, she had lost her husband when he was only in his early forties, when he was killed in a terrible car accident on the interstate during a freak storm in April that year. I should have been thinking of her when I had read Christopher’s description of their learning about his father’s rather weird car accident. It had been more than five years for Mrs. Osterhouse. I knew she had tried dating again but hadn’t found anyone in whom to invest her love and energy—until she began working for my father, that is.
He looked at me, and I shook my head.
The Dew Drop Inn was a modest restaurant with the capacity for about fifty patrons. It was done in a light oak, with a half dozen booths on both sides and a dozen tables in the center. The far wall consisted of a large fieldstone fireplace that I imagined was built by the Wilsons. It was lit with four or five chunks of hard oak firewood. The scent of it was not overpowering but did add authenticity, along with the antique pots and pewter farm implements hanging on walls and the paintings capturing colonial Virginia in villages and farms.
We crossed to say hello to Mrs. Osterhouse. She had been after me for years to call her Laura, but I was reluctant, sensing that the moment I did so, I would open the door to more intimacy and, in my young girl’s mind, maybe signal to my father that he had my permission to pursue a romantic relationship. I realized how foolish and even selfish that was now, but I still hadn’t called her Laura once.
She introduced me to Mrs. Taylor. My father knew her from the First National Bank, where she worked as VP of commercial loans.
“Looking forward to Thanksgiving, Kristin?” Mrs. Osterhouse asked. “I am,” she added, before I could reply. “I still don’t know your father’s secret to making that turkey moister than any I’ve ever eaten.”
“Yes,” I said. “He has a few cooking and baking secrets he won’t reveal. I think he gets up in the middle of the night when I’m asleep and does things.”
Both women laughed.
“It’s all very simple once the turkey and I come to an understanding,” my father said, and the women laughed again.
I was afraid they would ask us to join them, so I turned to the hostess and nodded at the booth behind them. She set the menus down. My father added some small talk about the weather and then followed me to the booth. He looked at me over the menu.
“Just a coincidence,” I said to those suspicious eyes.
He shook his head. We’d had this discussion a few times. He didn’t believe in coincidence. He always said, “If you didn’t plan it, someone else did. Someone behind you or above you.”
Maybe he was right, I thought. Maybe everything happens for a reason, even the fate of the Dollanganger children. What’s often difficult is discovering what that reason is, especially if it’s something tragic or sad.
We enjoyed our lunch, and as usual, when my father felt relaxed and comfortable, he talked about his own youth more and revealed more about our family. Inevitably, our conversation worked around to my mother and some new memories of her that he wanted to share. It was therapeutic for both of us to think of her in happier times. We had finally reached that point where we could do so and not feel all broken up inside and cast ourselves into the darkness for the remainder of the day.
Mrs. Osterhouse and her friend left before we did. She paused to talk to us a little more about Thanksgiving. I could see how much she really was looking forward to it, and I felt guiltier about making it seem so matter-of-fact. Before she turned to leave, I told her I was really looking forward to it, too, even to overeating. I saw the way her eyes warmed. Her smile was full of gratitude, and when I glanced at my father, I saw that he was happy I had broken the ice just a little.
And then, I don’t know why, but I suddenly had the feeling that he might have broken that ice a while ago.
I said nothing about it. After lunch, we went to do our shopping. Aside from the care and interest he always took with groceries, he was not fond of shopping for anything else. He really did depend on me for help with the gifts and navigating the department stores. He confessed that my mother had never liked going shopping with him.
“I’ve always been an in-and-out guy,” he told me. “I’d go for what I needed, get it, and leave, whereas she’d want to look at everything, spend time studying new things, even though at the end of the day, she left with what we had come for.”
We carried our laughter home with our groceries. I saw that I had more messages on my cell phone from girlfriends, but I didn’t call anyone back. I knew I’d be repeating the same things, and I thought I might do better dealing with it at school. I spent my time doing homework and studying for some quizzes I knew were coming. Teachers always hit us with something a day or two before we broke for a holiday.