wash ashore. Just beyond the surf, a guy and a girl cut through the water on a jet ski, moving fast. The girl screamed with either delight or fear.
'Those are fun,' Rebecca said. After the jet ski was gone, she said, 'Do you still have fun, Scott?'
'Sure.'
'But you're broke and you don't have anyone.'
'I have fun with the girls.'
'Do you have the kind of fun a man needs?'
'I have father fun.'
'Is that enough?'
'It may have to be.'
'It doesn't have to be, Scott. You can have man fun with me again.'
The girls needed a mother, and he needed a woman. Could Rebecca be a mother to Boo again… and to Pajamae? Could she be his wife again? Could they all go back to the way they were, as if the last two years had never happened? As if she had not run off with the golf pro, as if he were not now dead, as if she had not been accused of his murder, as if she had not used cocaine? How could she be a good mother if she were a bad influence? Would that work? Could it ever be the same? Could they have fun again?
And when they went to bed, would Trey lie down with them?
'Pete still winning?' Scott asked.
'He's up by one, on the fourteenth hole.'
'Unbelievable. Better eat this inside, see if he can finish it off.'
They went inside and found everyone lounging on the couch and chairs and eating cake and ice cream and the girls rolling on the floor laughing hysterically.
'What's so funny?' Scott asked.
'Cialis commercial,' Karen said. 'They mentioned the possible side effects, you know, 'seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours.' That tickled the girls.'
'That'd damn sure tickle me,' Carlos said. 'But I wouldn't call no doctor. I'd throw a party.' He gestured at the TV. 'What I don't get is, that Cialis commercial always shows the man and woman in separate bathtubs. How can you do it like that?'
'Oh,' Bobby said, 'what you do is-'
'Bobby!' Karen said. 'The girls.'
'Oh.' To Carlos: 'Later.'
'When those commercials come on,' Scott said, 'change the channel.'
'They're on every channel,' Karen said.
'What's a four-letter word for 'Turkey neighbor'?' Louis said.
'Peas,' Carlos said.
'Iran,' Bobby said.
'I ain't never had no turkey and iran for Thanksgiving.'
'They're countries-Turkey and Iran.'
'Oh.'
Scott plopped onto the sofa and watched the U.S. Open, which featured pudgy white boys and Tiger playing golf on narrow fairways and fast greens, glamour shots of WAGs in the gallery, and commercials targeting WM squared: fast cars, long drivers, and drugs for prostates that have enlarged and penises that won't. Pete Puckett resorted to his trusty one-iron and hit every fairway and green the final round. On the eighteenth hole, he tapped in a short putt to win.
Pete Puckett had won the U.S. Open.
It was his first win in over twenty years, and hands-down the sports shocker of the year. Pete high-fived Goose then walked off the green and wrapped his arms around his young daughter and lifted her into the air. The TV crew stuck cameras in their faces as they cried together, and the microphones caught Pete saying, 'I wish your mama was here.' Nick Madden stood next to them. When Pete released Billie Jean, Nick hugged him like a boy hugging his grandpa. After he signed his scorecard, Pete accepted a check for $1.35 million and the silver trophy then stepped to a microphone set up on the green.
'I dreamed of this day for twenty-six years out here on tour. And now, for that dream to come true… I just wish my wife could be here.' He hefted the trophy high and gazed into the sky. 'Dottie Lynn, this is for you.'
He put his arm around his daughter. Tears streamed down Billie Jean's face, but Scott couldn't help wondering if some of her tears were for Trey Rawlins.
Holding the U.S. Open trophy aloft, Pete Puckett didn't look like a killer-but a father would kill to protect his child. A twenty-eight-year-old man had seduced his seventeen-year-old daughter. Pete had learned of the affair and had threatened to kill Trey if he didn't stay away from Billie Jean. He had done what any father would do. He had tried to protect his daughter.
Had he killed for his daughter?
The law allowed network TV to show commercials for erectile dysfunction cures and seventeen-year-old children to have sex, but fathers didn't. What would Scott do to a man who lured Boo or Pajamae into sex at seventeen? It frightened him to think what he might do… what he could do. What any man could do. What a father would do. That dark side of a man resided in every father. We suppress it and control it and deny it-but it's always there. Waiting. For when it was needed. When a father needed to be a man… in the worst way a man could be.
Had Trey Rawlins brought out the worst in Pete Puckett?
'Louis, if Mr. Fenney marries Miz Fenney again, Boo'll have her family back together. They won't want a little black girl in the way.'
'Mr. Fenney, he adopted you. You ain't no little black girl. You're his girl.'
'You think it's okay for a white man to be my daddy? Even if he can't play basketball?'
'I think you're blessed to have any man love you as much as Mr. Fenney does and want to be your daddy. Ain't no color to love.'
'But my mama's dead.'
'Your mama was gonna die sooner than later, that's just the way it was for her. But you could've ended up with no one instead of Boo and Mr. Fenney.'
'I'd still have you.'
'That's a fact, but Mr. Fenney, he knows how to be a daddy. I don't.'
'But I already had a daddy, so how can Mr. Fenney be my daddy?'
'You already had a daddy?'
'Unh-huh.'
'So what'd he look like?'
'I don't know.'
'He ever play with you?'
'No.'
'Live with you?'
'No.'
'Take care of you?'
'No.'
'Love you?'
'No.'
'Then you ain't never had no daddy, girl. Till Mr. Fenney.'
'But he's Boo's daddy. Don't seem right, me taking some of his love from her.'
'It don't work that way. A man's love expands to meet the demands.'
'Huh?'
'You ain't taking love from Boo, you adding love to Mr. Fenney. His heart is like a tree-it grew bigger for you.'
'Huh?'
Louis put his hands on his hips like he did when he got annoyed.
