Ryan smiled. “We’re talking about Piedmont Springs. The last time we had a bank robbery, I think Bonnie and Clyde were the prime suspects.”
She laughed lightly. “You’re a hard one to figure out, you know that?”
“How’s that?”
“A doctor who doesn’t worship money and hasn’t lost his sense of humor.”
“I guess I get that from my dad.”
“Were the two of you a lot alike?”
Ryan thought for a second. A week ago he would have given an unqualified yes. Now he hedged. “I think so. It’s funny. I was looking through some family albums after the funeral. Some old pictures of my dad really struck me. He looked almost exactly the way I look now. Put him in some modern clothes, change the hair a little, he probably could have passed for me.”
“That’s eerie, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. We’re all like our parents in some ways. But when you see such a strong physical resemblance, it really makes you wonder how much of what you are is predetermined.”
Amy got quiet. She’d often wondered that as well, the spitting image of her mother. “I know what you mean.”
“Now that he’s gone, I’m almost mad at myself for not getting to know him better. I’m not saying we weren’t close. But I never asked him the kind of questions that might help me better understand myself.”
“Sometimes we just don’t have the opportunity,” she said, thinking more of her own situation.
Ryan sipped his coffee. “Wow, this is getting kind of deep, isn’t it? You probably think I need a shrink or something.”
“Not at all.”
They talked casually for another fifteen minutes. Conversation came easily, considering the awkward circumstances. It was feeling more like a date than a meeting about money.
“Refills?” asked the waitress, sneaking up on them.
They exchanged a look. The meeting could easily have been over, but neither seemed to want to end it.
“I don’t have to be anywhere,” said Ryan.
Amy checked her watch, then made a face. “Yikes. Unfortunately, I do. I have to pick up my daughter.”
He looked disappointed. “Too bad.”
“I guess I didn’t think this would take very long.”
The waitress laid the bill on the table. Ryan grabbed it. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I have to run off like this.”
“No problem.” He took a business card from his wallet, then jotted a number on the back. “Let me give you my home number, just in case any other questions come to mind. About the money, I mean.”
She took the card, rising. “Thanks.”
There was humor in his eyes. “I would tell you to look me up if ever you’re in Piedmont Springs, but I’m sure you know dozens of people there already, and I’d be way down on your list of people to call.”
“Of course. Paris. London. Piedmont Springs. I have that problem wherever I go.”
“I figured. Maybe I can send you another thousand dollars and see you again sometime.”
She smiled, but her gut wrenched. Little did he know he had already prepaid for another 199 visits. She was suddenly flustered, not sure what to say. “You never know.”
He shrugged, as if the response were a brush-off. “Well, it was very nice meeting you.”
She stood and waited for a second, wishing it had ended on a different note. But it was hard to come back from a remark like You never know. She wasn’t sure why she’d said it, wasn’t sure how to fix it. “Nice meeting you, too, Ryan.”
They exchanged one last smile, sadder than the others. She had an empty feeling of missed opportunity as she turned away and headed for the door.
13
From the Mile High City to the plains of southeastern Colorado, the ride was all downhill. Appropriate enough for a guy whose marriage was in a death spiral. Ryan drove the entire way to Piedmont Springs in silence, no stops and no radio, arriving at dusk. He was so consumed by his thoughts that he automatically turned on River Street, toward the house he and Liz had shared in their final years of marriage. Two blocks away, he realized his mistake. He didn’t live there anymore. This afternoon had made it clear he never would again. He pulled a U-turn, heading back to his parents’ house. Mom’s house, actually. Dad was dead. Mom got the house.
Ryan got the headache.
Quite literally, his head was pounding. Throughout the trip home, his mind had replayed today’s clash with Liz. It was a strange coincidence, the way her lawyer had cooked up the allegation that Ryan was hoarding huge sums of cash, keeping it from Liz. If they only knew.
His pulse quickened as he pulled into the driveway. Could they know?
They couldn’t. Liz was so angry today, she surely would have said something. Her only demand was that Ryan start earning money in a high-paying practice. In no way did she lay claim to a secret stash in the attic.
He killed the engine and stepped down from his Jeep Cherokee. His thoughts turned to Amy as he headed up the sidewalk. He still couldn’t figure what had gone wrong at the end. He thought he’d sensed a connection, seen something in her smile. For a while, she had him feeling not so bad about getting divorced. She seemed like a woman he’d like to get to know. But at the mere mention of possibly seeing each other again, it had all fallen apart. He couldn’t help but wonder what was really going on. As recently as Tuesday night, Liz was still talking about his father’s deathbed promise that “Money will come soon.” Maybe this Amy was a friend of Liz, someone that sneaky lawyer had sent just to pump financial information from him. Or maybe she really did receive some money, but she was being nice just to wiggle even more cash out of the Duffy family.
Ryan fumbled for his key to the front door, thinking. Extortion money in the attic. Cash gifts to strangers. Promises to Liz. What the hell were you trying to do to me, Dad?
He glanced to the west. The afterglow of the setting sun was fading behind the mountains in the distance. He assumed there were mountains out there somewhere. He couldn’t actually see them. From the dusty plains of southeastern Colorado, even fourteen-thousand-foot peaks were well beyond view. The utterly flat horizon reminded him of a late afternoon he and his dad had shared on the porch, just the two of them. It was a long time ago, when Ryan was small and his father chain-smoked the cigarettes that would eventually kill him. The sky had been unusually clear that day. On a hunch, his dad had brought out the binoculars, thinking rather naively that perhaps Ryan could get his first glimpse of the mountains to the west. Even on the clearest of days, however, they were still too far away. Ryan was disappointed, but he listened with excitement as his father described in detail the grandeur they were missing.
“Why don’t we live there?” he had asked eagerly.
“Because we live here, son.”
“Why don’t we move?”
His father chuckled, puffing on his cigarette. “People don’t just move.”
“Why not?”
“They just don’t.”
“You mean we’re stuck here?”
He looked toward the horizon. There was sadness in his voice. “Your roots are here, Ryan. Five generations on your mother’s side. Can’t just pull up roots.”
Thirty years later, Ryan recalled the tone more than the words. Complete resignation, as if the thought of sunsets and mountains glistening to the west were a constant reminder that everything beautiful was outside the reach of tiny Piedmont Springs.
Thinking about it now, he could see why Dad and Liz had gotten on so well. He used to think it was because father and son were so alike. Maybe it was because they were different.
Ryan unlocked the front door and stepped inside. The sun was completely gone, leaving the house in
