Laura Caldwell - The Night I got Lucky

“We did not mess around.”

“It depends on your definition, I suppose. Call it whatever you want, but this thing was your doing.”

“And for the two years before that when we barely spoke or fooled around? Whose doing was that?”

Chris said nothing.

“It was both of us, Chris. And that’s why we both need to work on this now.”

“If we want the marriage to work, you mean.”

I felt chilly with fear, and I stood up and began to pace on the green lawn. “Don’t you?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“I don’t know, Billy. I hate this. I’m in agony here. But I just don’t know.”

I began to tremble inside at his words. I could feel the sands of our marriage slipping through our fingers.

“I should go,” Chris said.

“No! Don’t.”

“I can’t talk about this now.”

“Okay, well…let’s talk about something else.”

“What else is there?”

I glanced up and took in the main street of Telluride with its brick storefronts and sunny sidewalks. “I’ve got a topic,” I said. “I’m in Telluride, Colorado.”

“What? What are you doing there?”

“I met my dad.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Nope.”

“Holy shit, Billy. How’d that happen?”

I sat back down, this time in a pool of sun that had splayed itself across the green grass, and I started talking to my husband.

K enny, Lillian’s son, was at the bar when I walked in that night, his blond dreadlocks pulled back from his face.

He smiled when he saw me. “Buy you a beer?”

“Sure, thanks.”

He caught the bartender’s eye and gestured. “I hear we’re related,” he said.

“Almost. We’re stepbrothers. Or sisters.” I shook my head. “Something like that.”

He handed me a beer. “Stepsiblings, I think would be the proper term. And I hear there are two more of you.”

“Yes. Two sisters.” I felt like mentioning that neither Dustin nor Hadley were like me at all, but I held back.

Earlier in the day, after Chris had listened so intently about my trip to Colorado, I’d made the mistake of calling Dustin in San Francisco. We were in nearly the same time zone for once, and I wanted to talk to someone else about meeting my father-our father.

Dustin hadn’t answered at her office, but she called me back ten minutes later. “How’s Chicago?” she asked.

“Actually, I’m in Colorado.”

There was the briefest of pauses. “Where in Colorado?”

“Telluride.”

Now the silence was longer. “Are you seeing Dad?”

I felt a zing of shock. “Did you know Dad lived here?”

“Yeah. I had someone locate him.”

“When?”

“A few years ago,” she said simply.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Then why’d you find him?”

“I wanted to find out where he was and what he was doing. And I learned that he’s married and has a son. He left us and got a whole new family.”

I sat up on the lawn outside the Telluride museum. “That’s not exactly right. He didn’t meet Lillian, his wife, until eight years ago, and Kenny is Lillian’s son.”

She gave a short laugh. “So you’re chummy with the whole clan, huh?”

“I met them,” I said defensively. “Did you?”

“God, no. I found out what I needed-that he’s still a bastard who doesn’t deserve us.”

No amount of explanation could convince Dustin that I should give our father any more of my time. After our phone call, I had lain back on the grassy lawn and debated what to do-see my father or not. But I couldn’t leave for O’Hare until the next day, and it seemed ridiculous to be in the same tiny town and not meet him. I’d finally, grudgingly, gotten up from the lawn and gone to take a shower.

Now, at the bar, I told Kenny generalities about Dustin and Hadley, leaving out the part that they’d probably want to torch this place if they knew our father was about to walk in.

“What about you?” I asked Kenny. “Any brothers or sisters?”

“Nope, just you.”

We smiled at each other.

“I’m pretty happy you showed up,” Kenny said. “I always thought I could use a sister.”

“Oh.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, feeling embarrassed but pleased. “I suppose…Um, I suppose I could use a brother, too.”

Lillian came in the bar then, trailed by my father. I watched him, trying to see him the way Dustin and Hadley might. They would look for signs that he was ready to run again. They would search for indications of his cold nature. But all I saw was his face breaking into a grin when he spotted Kenny and me. He took his wife’s arm gently and pointed us out, then walked behind her like a gentleman, guiding her with a hand on her back.

“Hello, Billy,” Lillian said shyly when they’d reached us.

My father patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “I’m so glad you came.”

I was, too.

The bar was filled with dark wood and mirrors browned with age. The ceiling was tin, stamped with tiny diamond shapes. We sat on a few huddled bar stools and watched a man with long hair and a scruffy beard play an engaging set of music-Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, Clapton, some blues. Soon Kenny drifted away to friends he saw near the door and Lillian got up to speak with a woman next to us. My father and I stayed put, one stool separating us. He had rolled up the cuffs of his navy blue shirt, and he looked very much in his element in this small-town bar. Although I was the out-of-towner, I noticed something similar about my father and me. We both swayed minutely to the music; we both closed our eyes once in a while when we heard a lyric or a note that touched us.

The singer broke into a new song-“I Looked Away” by Derek & the Dominoes.

My father leaned toward me. “I liked Clapton better when he was with these guys.” He gestured to the singer.

“No way,” I said. “He’s written much better stuff since then.”

“I absolutely disagree,” my dad said, but he said it with a small, pleased smile as if he was proud of me for being able to have this conversation, as if he was proud of himself for being with me right then.

“Let me ask you this,” he said. “Old Santana or new?”

“Old,” I answered without hesitation.

“That’s right.” He nodded. “And what do you think about Jagger these days?”

“What about him?”

“Is he past his prime?”

“Oh, no. He’s just as good.”

A grin of paternal delight spread across my father’s features. For a moment, it filled me with happiness. I’d made my father proud! But then I crashed back to reality. He had no reason to be proud of me. He’d had nothing to do with me or who I’d become.

I set my beer down on the bar. “Look, Brandon,” I said, making sure to use his first name. “Let’s make sure we both understand something. This…” I gestured back and forth between him and me. “This is not going to be some Hallmark card, father-daughter relationship. You made sure of that a long, long time ago.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lillian turn her head. My father looked at me for a while, then averted his gaze. “I understand,” he said.

I felt horrible. Logically, I wanted to hurt him, some way, somehow, for what he’d done all those years ago, or what he’d failed to do. But now, I just felt cruel.

I stood up. “Excuse me. I have to use the restroom.”

The bathroom had two stalls, plus a sink and a wooden chair in the corner. I took a seat and looked at the rose-colored fabric that papered the walls and the tiny black tiles on the floor. I sat, listening to a few strains of music seep inside. The bathroom seemed the loneliest place on the planet.