Макс Коллинз - Road to Paradise

By three in the morning or so, he’d have read a paperback or watched a film to the point of tiredness, and would then take a steaming bath, and lie back and think about his son and weep for perhaps fifteen minutes... then finally return to bed and fall to sleep rapidly.

For the last two days, he had followed this same procedure successfully, but the crying had finally stopped. He felt he was getting hold of himself.

Anna, however, could not seem to come out of her funk. And she was mad at him. For the first time in years — first time ever, really — his daughter was clinging to her mother, helping her out in every way possible, cooking meals on her own, even assisting with the dishes (well, putting them into the dishwasher, anyway) and offering to do the laundry (though her mother never took her up on it).

For the first two days, following the news about Mike, Anna had done all her crying, all her hugging, her consoling with her mother. She had barely spoken a word to her father, and avoided eye contact, even to the point of looking away with a jerk.

Finally, last night, he had knocked at her bedroom door, behind which her stereo blared Carole King’s Tapestry , an album that had been his daughter’s favorite for some time, but which Anna had never previously listened to at such Led Zeppelin decibels.

“Yes?” she called noncommittally.

He cracked the door — with a teenage daughter he had long since learned not to barge in — and spoke: “Okay I come in?”

“Yeah.”

Carole King, who Michael liked also, was singing “It’s Too Late,” but the volume made him cringe.

“You mind turning that down a little?” he asked.

Sitting Indian-style on the daisy-patterned bedspread, Anna — in a pink top with puka-shell necklace and blue bell-bottoms and no shoes, toenails pink also — was leafing through Rolling Stone . The furniture was white and modular, and the pale-yellow walls were largely obscured by posters of recording artists (Janis Joplin), musical plays ( Hair ), and favorite movies ( Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ); unlike most girls her age, Anna’s posters were framed, as they tended to be autographed.

Anna had her mother’s apple cheeks and heart-shaped face, but her eyes were big and dark brown, and her hair — which was straight and went endlessly down her back — was an even darker shade, a rich auburn. She wore a blue-and-yellow beaded headband. She often affected heavy eye shadow, but right now she didn’t have a trace of makeup, not even lipstick — and yet was stunning.

He pulled a white chair away from a small desk area recessed within a white unit of closets and cupboards decorated with signed eight-by-tens from their Hollywood trip, and sat near her bedside.

“No homework?” he asked, hands folded in his lap.

She flipped a page of the newspaper-like magazine, not looking at him. “Done.”

“Expected you to be poring over your script.”

She was Maria in The Sound of Music .

“Know it,” she said, flipping a page.

“Is it my imagination?”

No eye contact. “Is what your imagination?”

“The deep freeze treatment I’m getting from you.”

She shrugged.

“I want you to know I do appreciate what you’ve done for your mother... the support. You’ve always meant a lot to her, but right now—”

She gave him a long, slow, cold look. “You don’t make it as Ward Cleaver, okay, Dad?”

“You’d prefer Archie Bunker?”

She almost smiled, but caught herself, and looked down at a picture of a hippie-ish Jane Fonda at a peace rally. “I’d prefer privacy.”

He leaned forward, hands clasped. “What is this about, Annie?”

She shot a glare at him — eye contact, at least. “Please don’t call me that. It’s a kid name. I am not a kid.”

“Anna. What have I done?”

She gave him another sharp look, dark eyes accusing. Suddenly he realized tears were shimmering there. “Don’t you know?”

“No, sweetheart. I don’t.”

Her lip curled. “ You did this. You encouraged him.”

Now he got it.

“You blame me,” he said, “for Mike?”

“He worshiped you. All you would have had to say was, don’t go. Tell him you’d rather see him in Canada than Vietnam. But he had to prove himself to you, walk in your footsteps. The big hero.”

“I never encouraged him. I asked him not to do it.”

Nostrils flared. “Don’t give me that shit! Once you said you were proud of him for it...” She shrugged contemptuously, farted with her lips. “...all she wrote.”

He moved from the chair to sit on the edge of the bed. “Sweetheart... it was his decision.”

Her eyes flashed. “Do you believe in that war?”

“...No.”

“That’s right. You and Mom both spoke out against it. And everything Mom said has come true — look at those fucking Pentagon Papers!”

“Please don’t...”

“What, my language off ends you?” She leaned forward grinning sarcastically. “Do I smoke pot? Am I a smelly hippie? A flower child banging every boy at school?”

“Don’t...”

“I have friends who snort coke, Daddy! And I’m so good, I’m so sweet, I’m such a straight little shit... I’m even playing fucking Maria in Sound of Music !”

Then her anger curdled into something else, her chin crinkling, and she began to cry.

She held her arms out to him, helplessly, and he took her in his embrace and patted her like the baby she was to him.

She wept for a good minute.

Then she drew away, snuffling, and her father handed her a Kleenex from the box on her nightstand, and she took it, saying, “Oh, Daddy, is Mike ever coming home?”

He couldn’t lie to her. “I don’t know... I don’t know, sweetheart. That’s why you have to stay strong for your mother.”

She nodded, blew her nose, reached for another tissue, and dried her face. “...I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

“I understand. I really do.”

“I guess I... I had to take it out on somebody.”

He smiled a little, shrugged. “And I was handy.”

She smiled a little, too; but it didn’t last long — rage returned: “It’s not fair. The war is over — it’s fucking over !”

He shook his head. “It’s never going to be over for us. Especially your mother. So stay close to her. Next year... when you’re off at college? You’ll need to come home more often than you’d probably like.”

“If Mike is... if he’s not ever coming home, if he’s... if he got killed — will we know?”

“Maybe.”

“But... maybe not? Maybe we just have to hang in limbo, forever?”

“I wish I knew the answer, Annie... sorry. Anna.”

She threw herself at him and hugged him. Tight. “You call me that all you want, Daddy. You call me that all you want.”

When he left her room, she was studying her Sound of Music script, and Carole King was softly singing “You Need a Friend.” All was right with their father-daughter world again... or as right as a world could be without her brother in it.

This was Monday, his first day back at Cal-Neva — he had virtually not set foot out of his house since that staff sergeant arrived with the news — and now Michael sat at his desk staring out the picture window at the green pines and sparkling lake and brilliant blue sky, which hadn’t changed at all, despite the Satarianos having their universe upended.

Tomorrow was May first, and the casino resort would be open for business, so many of his staff were here, not just maintenance but kitchen and bartending and... well, everybody. Word had gotten around about Mike, and one by one they’d stopped to speak respectfully to their boss. Many of them knew Mike, and these comments were particularly appreciated if painful.