After Lucy ran a cupful of beans through the electric grinder, she measured the coffee into the machine, while her father filled a pitcher at the sink. “So what do you think of Sam?” Lucy asked.
“I like him. A smart fellow. He appears to be healthy and self-supporting, and he laughed at my Heisenberg joke. I can’t help but wonder why a man with such a good brain would waste it on tending a vineyard.”
“It’s not a waste.”
“Thousands of people all over the world make wine. There’s no point in coming up with yet another one, when there are already so many being produced.”
“That’s like saying no one should produce any more art, because we already have so much out there.”
“Art—or wine—doesn’t benefit people the way science does.”
“Sam would say the opposite.” She watched her father pour water into the coffeemaker.
The appliance clicked and steamed as it began to percolate.
“A more significant question,” her father remarked, “is what you think of him.”
“I like him too. But there’s no chance of the relationship getting serious. He and I both have future plans that don’t include each other.”
Her father shrugged. “If you enjoy his company, there’s no harm in spending time with him.”
They were quiet for a moment, listening to the placid sputter of the coffeemaker.
“You’re going to see Alice and Kevin tomorrow?” Lucy asked.
Her father nodded, his smile turning grim. “You know that that marriage—if it happens—doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”
“You can’t be a hundred percent certain,” Lucy said, even though she privately agreed. “People surprise you.”
“Yes, they do,” he admitted. “At my age, however, not often. Where are the coffee mugs?”
Together they opened a couple of cabinets until they found them.
“Your mother and I have been talking recently,” Phillip said, and stunned her by adding, “I gather she’s told you that I’d been married once before.”
“Yes,” Lucy managed to say. “That was kind of a shocker.”
“All this business with you and Alice and Kevin has stirred up some issues your mother and I haven’t faced in quite a while.”
“Is that bad?” Lucy asked gingerly.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been convinced that everything in a relationship needs to be talked about. Some things can’t be fixed by a conversation.”
“I’m guessing these issues have to do with … her?” For some reason the words “your first wife” were too jarring for Lucy to say.
“Yes. I love your mother. I would never make comparisons. The other relationship was…” A pause, fraught with a kind of pensive strain she had never seen from him before. “It was in its own category.”
“What was her name?” Lucy asked softly.
His lips parted as if to answer, but he shook his head and stayed silent.
What kind of woman had she had been, Lucy wondered, that decades after her death, he couldn’t speak her name?
“That intensity of emotion…” he said after a while, as if to himself. “That sense of two people being so right for each other, they’re halves of a whole. It was … extraordinary.”
“So you don’t regret it,” Lucy said.
“I do regret it.” Her father looked at her directly, his eyes glittering. His voice was thick as he added, “Better not to know. But that’s just me. Other people might say that it’s worth any price to have just a few moments of what I had.” Turning away, he began to pour the coffee.
Stunned into silence by the rare display of emotion, Lucy hobbled to get spoons from the flatware drawer. Had he been a more tactile man, she would have gone to embrace him. However, his buttoned-up civility had always been a suit of armor, repelling gestures of affection.
Now she understood something about her father that she never had before—his calmness, his endless composure, had nothing to do with peace.
* * *
After the Marinns had returned to California, Lucy’s mother called to tell her that the day they had spent with Alice and Kevin had gone as well as could have been expected. According to Cherise, the pair had been subdued. Kevin had been especially quiet. “But I did get the feeling,” her mother said, “that they’ve both made up their minds to go through with it, no matter what. I think Kevin’s being pushed by his parents—they seem very intent on getting him married.”
Lucy smiled ruefully. Kevin’s parents were an older couple who had spoiled their only son and had subsequently been dismayed by his immaturity and self-centeredness. But it was too late for them to wonder what might have been, what they should have done differently. Perhaps they thought that marriage would be good for him, make him more of an adult.
“We went out to dinner,” Cherise said, “and everyone was on their best behavior.”
“Even Dad?” Lucy asked wryly.
“Even Dad. The only awkward moment came when Kevin asked me about you.”
“He did?” Lucy felt a startled jab in her stomach. “In front of everyone?”
“Yes. He wanted to know about your leg, and how you were feeling, and then he asked how involved you were with Sam.”
“My God. I bet Alice wanted to kill him.”
“It wasn’t good timing on his part,” her mother said.
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth—that you look well, and happy, and you seem to be getting very close to Sam. And I couldn’t be any more pleased about it.”
“Mom. I’ve already told you why there’s no chance for me to have a serious relationship with Sam. So please don’t get your hopes up for something that’s impossible.”
“Don’t say ‘it’s impossible,’” her mother said with annoying sanguinity, “about something that you’re already doing.”
* * *
Two days after her parents’ visit, Lucy moved into the condo at Friday Harbor. To her surprise, Sam had objected to her leaving Rainshadow so soon, insisting that she needed more time to rest and heal. “Besides,” he’d said, “I don’t think you’ve gotten the hang of those crutches yet.”
“I’ve totally gotten the hang of them,” Lucy said. “I can even do tricks with them. You should see my freestyle moves.”
“All those stairs. All that walking. And you can’t drive yet. How are you going to get groceries?”
“I’ve got a whole list of numbers from the Hog Heaven congregation.”
“I don’t want you to hang out with a bunch of bikers.”
“I won’t be hanging out with them,” Lucy said, amused. “They’re just going to lend me a hand every now and then.”
Although it was clear that Sam would have liked to argue further, he muttered,
