“Oh,” Nate said. “Oops. But she hates opera. You
Janie’s smile did not quite reach her eyes. “Not really,” she told Pete.
“There is no ‘not really,’” Nate said. “This is
Janie’s head whipped over to him. He showed his palms.
Pete looked confused and a touch disappointed. “You really don’t like opera? I’m sure I can find someone to give the tickets to if you-”
“Look,” she said, resting a hand on the small of Pete’s back, “can we maybe not have this discussion right now, honey?”
Constantly with the pet names, as though they were afraid if they didn’t label each other at the end of every sentence, they might find themselves estranged.
Nate said, “Where’s my daughter?”
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Janie said.
The words like a slap. It took him a moment to recover. “Why not?”
Pete said, “She’s probably afraid you’ll disappoint her again.”
“Don’t take yourself so seriously, Pete,” Nate said. “No one else does.”
Janie was studying him, furrows texturing her forehead. It wasn’t so much his words, he realized, as his tone that had caught her attention. She seemed less angry than mystified. “What’s gotten into you, Nate?”
Pete leaned over the counter toward Nate. “Cielle is my responsibility now, too. And you can have all the smart-ass quips you want, but I’m gonna do right by her. Which-if you actually took a second to think-is probably what you want instead of some asshole stepdad who doesn’t give a shit about her.”
Nate thought about those abysmal first months after the separation. How on day four the sight of a girl riding her father’s shoulders had nailed him to the pavement outside a grocery store. How one desperate night Janie had let him in just so he could sit in the darkness of his daughter’s room and listen to the faint whistle of her breath as she slept. How Cielle, standing in the dim light of his tiny one-bedroom, had clumsily declared, “It’s too hard when I see you and then you’re gone.” Then, a few visits later: “Sometimes it’s easier when the person who leaves just leaves for good.” And how, even though it gutted him, he’d given her more space and more space until their weekly dinner became monthly, then quarterly. And how after the diagnosis he’d torn himself away from her and Janie altogether, not wanting them to have to suffer anything with him, whether out of love, guilt, or obligation. Fair or not, he wanted to weaponize all that pain and loss and aim it right through Pete’s gallant face, but instead he looked at Janie and screwed his jaw shut.
Casper lifted his square, Scooby-Doo head and compassionately took in Nate’s discomfort. He wasn’t an animal so much as a human in a dog suit.
Janie said, “You’re bleeding.”
He peered over his shoulder and saw where a crimson seam blotted the undershirt. “I’m okay.”
She wet a hand towel, carried it over, and lifted his shirt in the back. Pete and Nate made an effort to avoid eye contact.
“Nice stitch work,” she said, dabbing at the edges of the wound. He relaxed a bit under her touch. “The bank robbery,” she reminded him.
Before he could speak, Cielle appeared in the doorway.
She still carried thirty or so extra pounds, though her fullness didn’t detract from her beauty. Those dark brown irises, almost black. Long bowed lashes framing her eyes, rendering eyeliner or mascara superfluous. Raven locks twisting this way and that, now streaked with maroon. Everything about her appearance, from the goth-girl highlights to the baggy charcoal sweater with torn thumbholes in the sleeves, seemed too angry for a fifteen-year- old girl. Or perhaps right on target. He’d forgotten how long ninth months was in the life cycle of a teenager.
“What’s with the undershirt, Nate?” she asked.
“Show some respect, Cielle,” Janie said. “Call him
“It’s from the hospital,” Nate said. “I got stabbed during a bank robbery.”
Janie took in a clump of air.
“And I shot the robbers. Well, most of them.”
Pete lowered his hands to the counter, and Janie’s hands stopped moving on Nate’s back, but Cielle didn’t miss a beat. “Were any of them named Jason Hensley?”
“… No.”
“Then I don’t care.”
“Who’s Jason Hensley?”
“My shithead boyfriend. Who thinks that buying a new guitar is more important than taking me to Magic Mountain as was promised for our three-month anniversary.”
“Cielle,” Janie said. “I love you, honey. And I know that in your fifteen-year-old brain, boy troubles are equivalent to your father’s getting stabbed in a bank robbery, but can we please focus on him right now?”
“You don’t actually
Pete said, “Whatever you want to think about your father, Cielle, he’s not a liar.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Go ahead.”
Nate walked them through the official version, leaving out the almost suicide and the threats that Number Six had leveled at him in the vault. When he finished, Cielle’s mouth was popped open, exposing a wad of fluorescent gum.
“Aren’t you worried?” Janie asked. “That they’ll come after you? I mean, you killed five men. They have to have … I don’t know,
Nate thought about that tattooed hand curled through the gap in the Town Car’s window, pinching off the cigarette between the fingers without so much as a flinch. Just slow, steady pressure, suffocating the flame. Nate tapped his palm to his pocket, felt the comforting weight of the pill bottle against his thigh. His exit plan. “I’m not concerned about it,” he answered.
Cielle: “So you just came to…?”
“I wanted to tell you before you heard about it somewhere else,” he said. “And … um…” There was no good transition. “I’m sick. Too.”
Janie had forgotten about the towel, which was dripping pink onto the floor tiles. She looked as though she were piecing herself back together internally, and he felt a darkening remorse for bringing this here, to her and Cielle. “As in…?” was all Janie could manage.
Nate took a deep breath. Bit his lip. Here was that point before the world flew apart. The toughest death notification he’d have to serve.
He said softly, “I’m not gonna be around much longer.”
Janie shook her head. More fat drops tapping the floor tile. “What…?”
“ALS,” he said. And then, for Cielle’s sake, “Lou Gehrig’s. That’s why I cut off from you guys nine months ago. We were already … And … I didn’t want to put you through it.”
Though Janie’s face stayed still, there were tracks on her cheeks instantly, as if they’d sprung through the skin. He felt an overpowering urge to take her in his arms, but then Cielle said sharply, “That is
Pete cleared his throat, then said, “I remember when Sally died, I couldn’t find any sense in getting out of bed. But after a while…” His hand circled, trying to land on a thought. “Someone said once that whenever a door closes in your face, another opens farther down the hall.”
“Which door is that?” Nate said. “To Valhalla?”
A sharp silence. Janie looked unsteady on her feet, and Pete pulled her in and rubbed her shoulders from behind. His face was heavy with sadness, and Nate felt a rush of regret.
He sucked in a breath. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m a jerk.”
“No.” Pete shook his head. “It was a dumb comment for me to make. I don’t know what to say. I’m really sorry to hear about it, Nate.”
Nate pointed upstairs. “Look, I’d better-”
Janie nodded, a quick jerk of the chin.
Upstairs, Cielle’s closed door waited, as imposing as a prison gate. The pencil lines on the door jamb marking
