“You mean, besides the three months camped out together in the condo?”
“I know. That couldn’t have been fun…”
“How can you say that? Do you know any other girl who gets to pick up her dates with an armed agent riding shotgun in the front seat? ‘Hello, Bill. This is Special Agent Smith. He’ll be frisking you before we leave.’”
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” I tell her.
“Yeah. You weren’t there. Most of my dates were more interested in the driver than in me. One of them wanted to see his gun. Then he wanted to know how he could apply.”
“I wouldn’t go out with that guy if I were you.” I drop my briefcase on the floor and pry my dress oxfords off my feet without untying them.
“Not to worry, Dad. I’m sure he won’t call again. That is, of course, unless he’s filled out his application and wants to file it.”
It is a sore point with my daughter. And it’s not the first time that cameras and paparazzi have stalked us in our own house. It has happened before during trials.
At this moment she looks so much like her mother, Nikki, she could pass for her sister, auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail and the same dappled freckles across the nose.
“But you could stay home tonight,” I tell her.
“Dad, I’m twenty-two. I’ve been away at college for four years, on my own. Nobody was there to take care of me and I made it just fine. You have to learn to let go,” she says.
“I know. You’re right. I just need a little more time to get used to the idea. You have to remember, you’re all I have left.”
She glances at me. The sarcasm melts from her face as she drops the defensive posture and the folded arms. “Oh, Dad!”
In two strides she closes the distance between us, throws her arms around me, and we hug in the hallway, right next to the old register clock hanging on the wall. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says. “I’ll always be around. You’re not going to lose me.”
My wife, Nikki, Sarah’s mother, died more than fifteen years ago, leaving the two of us to fend for ourselves. As I hold Sarah the clock ticks in my ear and floods my mind with memories of a million happy mornings; of hastily cooked breakfasts, tuna sandwiches in waxed paper, fruit and cookies tossed into brown paper bags. And always capped by the hectic morning road race to school. I still drive the old yellow Nissan, the one I used ten years ago to ferry Sarah back and forth. A hundred and fifty thousand miles and I cannot bear to part with it. I am afraid that when it dies, so will I. It is my time machine, filled with remembrances of better days, echoes of laughter, and a few tears. I love the grown woman who returned from college, but I miss the little girl who once sat next to me in that big yellow car.
While she still has her arms around me, I start in again. “I just thought that maybe you could stay home tonight and we could enjoy an evening together.”
“I know, but I already made plans to go out with Jenny.” She gives me a final squeeze, slides her arms from around my shoulders, and looks at her watch. “She should be here any minute. You’ve never met Jenny.”
“No.”
“She’s really nice. You’ll like her.”
“I’m sure I will. Listen, I’ve got an idea. I could order out, get a movie, whatever you girls want to watch. If there’s someone else you want to invite, call ’ em up. Now that you’re back in town, I’d like to meet all your friends. And you know me, by ten o’clock I’ll hit the sack and you guys can have the run of the house.”
“Gee, we could put on our pajamas and have a sleepover.” She rolls her big brown eyes toward the ceiling and laughs. “Dad, please…”
She turns and glances through the double-glazed window in the front door, then checks her watch again. “Late as usual. Jenny’s a lot of fun, but she needs a clock.”
“You can do whatever you want. Have a party. Drink. Bring in guys. I don’t care. But why not do it here?” I tell her.
Sarah turns back and looks at me. “What is this? What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” I give her a look of innocence.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she says.
“No. Why?”
“Dad! I mean it.” She folds her arms again and looks at me straight on-the brown-eyed truth machine.
“I swear. There’s nothing.” My voice rises half an octave in denial.
“Are you sure?” She puts the same female glare on me that Joselyn Cole used to unravel me in the office. Where they learn this I don’t know. You could bottle it and dispense with trials by jury. “I don’t believe you.” She comes to the same conclusion Cole did. The woman was right. Children and dogs, they’ll get you every time.
I shrug my shoulders and shake my head. “There’s nothing,” I tell her. I raise my right hand, three fingers held tightly together.
“What’s that?”
“Boy Scout sign,” I tell her.
“When were you in the Scouts?”
“You don’t have to belong to know the sign.”
“Exactly, and stop trying to change the subject.” Sarah studies me for a couple of seconds. “Dad, I’m worried about you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a basket case. I know we’ve both been through a lot. The last several months haven’t been easy for either of us. But it’s over. Look out there.” She points toward the front window in the living room. “The cameras are gone. Those people are off our front lawn. And unless we’ve moved to hell, they won’t be coming back. You don’t have to worry anymore.”
“I know.”
She glances down toward the floor for a moment and collects her thoughts. “You know, Dad, I’ve been thinking. It might be good if you got some help,” she says.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m talking about professional help,” she says. “Since what happened at North Island you’re not the same person anymore. You’re never happy. You’re always worried. It seems like you’re constantly looking over your shoulder, as if something bad is about to happen. Is there some reason for this?”
“No…I guess I’m just…well, you know…”
“No, I don’t!”
“A little jumpy!” I snap at her.
“That’s what I mean. You need help,” she says. “I know you don’t want to talk to me about what happened that day. And if it makes you uncomfortable, I understand. But you need to talk to somebody.”
She stands there looking at me.
At first I don’t say anything. When the words finally come out, it’s as if they are emitted from some feeble golem-like ghost buried in the depths of my soul-“I’m all right.”
“I don’t know everything that happened that day, only what I read in the papers. But I know it must have been awful. It had to be-the noise, the violence, people being shot and killed like that. I am guessing that you saw a lot of it.”
“You know what they say: ‘As long as the right people get shot.’” I try to make light of it.
“Don’t even joke,” she says. “It doesn’t matter whether they were good or bad or what they were doing. They still died and you had to watch it. There’s no shame in seeing a therapist,” says Sarah. “There is such a thing as post-traumatic stress.” She pauses for a moment and looks away. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I found the pistol in your nightstand.”
Whoops!
“When did that start?” she asks. “We’ve never had a gun in the house before. Not that I know of.”
“No. You’re right.” A set of headlights flash as a car turns into the driveway out in front.
“I should have told you. Thorpe, you remember, the man from the FBI. He told Harry and me and Herman that there’s probably nothing to worry about, but until they tie up all the loose ends, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep some form of self-protection in the house.”
