Hi Dan. I'm visiting my father in NC. Will call you when I get back in town.
At first I end it with "take care," but that sounds ludicrously casual. I consider adding a random emoji or GIF to lighten the mood, but I don't. Dan and I can't share jokes anymore. From now on, I'll have to act like Barb around him, buttoned up and proper. I decide to leave it at the two-sentence message and hit send. Dan won't like it, but my hope is that with his wife, kids and summer school job, he's too busy to pursue me right now.
* * *
While I'm sippingmy coffee in the sunny kitchen and catching up on the news via my phone, Dad calls me from the cheese room. He's looking for some calculations he scribbled down on a piece of paper in Renata's office. I offer to find them, and it's the first time I've been inside this small room on the main floor. There's a wall lined with bookshelves, a pretty red filing cabinet, and a desk full of papers and mail sorted into piles. On the wall behind the desk is a gallery of family photos. After I give Dad the number he needs, I stay to look at the pictures.
The most prominent one in the center of the wall is a wedding photo of Renata and her late husband. She's fresh and lovely, and he's holding onto her and smiling like he could burst with happiness. Flanking it are Michael and Trey's high school photos, handsome young men who look like their dad and have bright futures ahead of them. Michael got the charming dimple and easy smile, but Trey got the pretty eyes.
Harmony's life is documented from birth, safe in her mother's arms as a baby, smashing her first birthday cake, and racing down a slide as a toddler. There's a more recent picture of her with Michael on a carousel, and some of the light has gone out of his smile in that photo. I know without asking that it was taken after his wife passed away. I can't imagine the pain they both felt, losing a wife and mother way too soon.
There aren't many photos of Seth, and I would bet money that it's because he doesn't like having his picture taken. There is one official looking headshot of him in his dark Marine jacket with brass buttons and a white hat, the black peak of which is pulled down so low it covers his eyebrows. He barely looks like the same person, what with his jug ears revealed by an awful buzz haircut. He was a little baby back then. As I look at the photo, I imagine the fear Renata must have experienced when he joined the military.
"I appreciate your service even if you are an asshole," I say sternly to his picture.
I have the juvenile idea of giving him a loopy mustache with a Sharpie pen, but I don't need to do it. Just the thought is satisfying enough. I smile and trace his top lip with my finger.
Would Renata add a picture of Dad and herself to this wall? The idea is so strange to me, I can't imagine it. A blended family, she said. And that's how strangers become the most important people in your life.
When I come out of the office, Seth is heading down the hallway wearing his tool belt over his shorts, a tragically dorky look. He stops abruptly when he sees me and stares.
I raise my hands in the air like I'm about to be arrested. "I was told to go into Renata's office to get something for Dad. I wasn't snooping." Instead of responding, he continues looking at me. "What?"
"I heard you on the phone last night," he says. "Obviously."
The best thing to do in these cases is get on the offensive.
"So I'm a terrible person for looking in kitchen drawers, but eavesdropping on people's conversations is fine. Got it."
Seth scowls and sets his hands on his waist. "I wasn't eavesdropping, I was walking out the door. You were sitting on the porch. It's not exactly a private area of the house."
"I'll remember to stay in my room and lock the door when I want to speak on the phone.” I mimic his stance by planting my hands on my hips and standing up taller. It's tough to look imposing when you're wearing overall shorts, but I'm fairly sure I'm pulling it off.
"I think you're here to break up Renata and Herb," Seth says. "Am I wrong?"
Mutt's ears perk up in response to our tension.
"Yes, you are. I'm here to make sure Dad isn't jumping into something that's going to get him hurt. Renata is lovely, but he's given up everything to come down here and help her with this place. He gave up his job, his apartment, his friends—”
"What do you think," Seth says, cutting me off, "that she lured your dad here to take care of her? The man can barely change a lightbulb. I was here last night because your dad blew a fuse in the bedroom using his hair dryer and couldn't figure out how to find the fuse box and flip the switch to get it going again. Does this sound like a guy Renata would trap into running the farm while she sits around drinking lemonade?"
Rage. I'm a boiling pot of rage. How dare he make my father out to be incompetent. My mother you can criticize any day of the week, but Dad is my hero.
"Are you saying he's incapable of taking care of someone just because he can't build a cabin in the woods? My mother left when I was twelve, and Dad and I were on our own. He raised me single-handedly on a teacher's salary. He did the cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, clothes shopping, doctor appointments. Everything. Who have you ever taken care of like that in your life?"
His eyes darken, and suddenly I remember that Dad said Seth cared for his sick mother. I'm figuring out how to apologize when he speaks again.
"I've taken care of other people. I also know how to take care of myself, including changing a fuse and knowing enough to clean out the gutters when they're full of debris."
"I thought Renata said you were a feminist?"
Seth eyes me with mistrust. "I am, I guess."
"Then why are you criticizing my dad for not being handy? Maybe Renata can be the one to make home repairs. It's not 1960. Plus, we've lived in apartments our whole lives. He's never had to learn that stuff, but he can, and maybe he will."
"Not if you have a say in it though, right?" Seth shoots back at me. "He's going home with you as soon as you can convince him he made a 'huge mistake.' "
I cringe, hearing my own words spewed at me with such venom. Mutt is looking back and forth between us like a child trapped in the middle of a parental disagreement.
