Nicholas Sparks - The Last Song

Her suspicions were confirmed when he reached for a cigarette. After he lit it, he blew the smoke toward Blaze, then turned to Ronnie.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

Ronnie shifted in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable. It seemed like everyone, Blaze included, was waiting for her answer.

“Why?”

“We’re having a little get-together at Bower’s Point. Not just us. A bunch of people. I want you to come. Without the cops this time.”

Blaze studied the tabletop, toying with the pile of salt. When Ronnie didn’t answer, Marcus rose from the table and headed for the door without turning back.

Hey, Dad,” Jonah called out. He was standing behind the piano in the alcove as Steve brought the plates of spaghetti to the table. “Is that a picture of you with Grandma and Grandpa?”

“Yeah, that’s my mom and dad.”

“I don’t remember that picture. From the apartment, I mean.”

“For a long time, it was in my office at school.”

“Oh,” Jonah said. He leaned closer to the photo, studying it. “You kind of look like Grandpa.”

Steve wasn’t sure what to think about that. “Maybe a little.”

“Do you miss him?”

“He was my dad. What do you think?”

“I’d miss you.”

As Jonah came to the table, Steve reflected that it had been a satisfying, if uneventful, day. They’d spent the morning in the shop, where Steve had taught Jonah to cut glass; they’d eaten sandwiches on the porch and collected seashells in the late afternoon. And Steve had promised that as soon as it was dark, he would take Jonah for a walk down the beach with flashlights to watch the hundreds of spider crabs darting in and out of their sand burrows.

Jonah pulled out his chair and plopped down. He took a drink of milk, leaving a white mustache. “Do you think Ronnie’s coming home soon?”

“I hope so.”

Jonah wiped his lip with the back of his hand. “Sometimes she stays out pretty late.”

“I know.”

“Is the police officer going to bring her back home again?”

Steve glanced out the window; dusk was coming, and the water was turning opaque. He wondered where she was and what she was doing.

“No,” he said. “Not tonight.”

After their walk along the beach, Jonah took a shower before crawling into bed. Steve pulled up the covers and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thanks for the great day,” Steve whispered.

“You’re welcome.”

“Good night, Jonah. I love you.”

“Me, too, Dad.”

Steve rose and started for the door.

“Hey, Dad?”

Steve turned. “Yes?”

“Did your dad ever take you out to look for spider crabs?”

“No,” Steve said.

“Why not? That was awesome.”

“He wasn’t that kind of father.”

“What kind was he?”

Steve considered the question. “He was complicated,” he finally said.

At the piano, Steve recalled the afternoon six years earlier when he took his father’s hand for the first time in his life. He had told his father that he knew he’d done the best he could in raising him, that he didn’t blame his father for anything, and that most of all, he loved him.

His father turned toward him. His eyes were focused, and despite the high doses of morphine that he’d been taking, his mind was clear. He stared at Steve for a long time before pulling his hand away.

“You sound like a woman when you talk like that,” he said.

They were in a semiprivate room on the fourth floor of the hospital. His father had been there for three days. IV tubes snaked out of his arms, and he hadn’t eaten solid food in more than a month. His cheeks were sunken, and his skin was translucent. Up close, Steve thought his father’s breath smelled of decay, another sign the cancer was announcing its victory.

Steve turned toward the window. Outside, he could see nothing but blue skies, a bright, unyielding bubble surrounding the room. No birds, no clouds, no visible trees. Behind him, he could hear the steady beep of the heart monitor. It sounded strong and steady, with regular rhythm, making it seem that his father would live another twenty years. But it wasn’t his heart that was killing him.

“How is he?” Kim asked later that night when they were talking on the phone.

“Not good,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer he has, but…”

He trailed off. He could imagine Kim on the other end, standing near the stove, stirring pasta or dicing tomatoes, the phone cocked between her ear and shoulder. She’d never been able to sit still when talking on the phone.

“Did anyone else come by?”

“No,” he answered. What he didn’t tell her was that according to the nurses, no one else had visited at all.

“Were you able to talk to him?” she asked.

“Yes, but not for long. He was drifting in and out most of the day.”

“Did you say what I told you to say?”

“Yes,” he said.

“What did he say?” she asked. “Did he say he loved you, too?”

Steve knew the answer she wanted. He was standing in his father’s home, inspecting the photos on the mantel: the family after Steve was baptized, a wedding photo of Kim and Steve, Ronnie and Jonah as toddlers. The frames were dusty, untouched in years. He knew that it had been his mother who put them there, and as he stared at them, he wondered what his father thought as he looked at them, or if he even saw them at all, or if he even realized they were there.

“Yes,” he finally said. “He told me he loved me.”

“I’m glad,” she said. Her tone was relieved and satisfied, as though his answer had affirmed something to her about the world. “I know how important that was to you.”

Steve grew up in a white ranch-style house, in a neighborhood of white ranch-style houses on the intracoastal side of the island. It was small, with two bedrooms, a single bathroom, and a separate garage that housed his father’s tools and smelled permanently of sawdust. The backyard, shaded by a gnarled live oak that held its leaves year-round, didn’t get enough sun, so his mother planted the vegetable garden in the front. She grew tomatoes and onions, turnips and beans, cabbage and corn, and in the summers, it was impossible to see the road that fronted the house from the living room. Sometimes Steve would overhear the neighbors grumbling in hushed voices, complaining about declining property values, but the garden was replanted every spring, and no one ever said a word directly to his father. They knew, as well as he did, that it wouldn’t have done them any good. Besides, they liked his wife, and they all knew they would need his services one day.

His father was a trim carpenter by trade, but he had a gift for fixing anything. Over the years, Steve had seen him repair radios, televisions, auto and lawn mower engines, leaking pipes, dangling gutters, broken windows, and once, even the hydraulic presses of a small tool-manufacturing plant near the state line. He’d never attended high school, but he had an innate understanding of mechanics and building concepts. At night, when the phone rang, his father always answered, since it was usually for him. Most of the time, he said very little, listening as one emergency or another was described, and then Steve would watch him carefully jot the address on pieces of scratch paper torn from old newspapers. After hanging up, his father would venture to the garage, fill his toolbox, and head out, usually without mentioning where he was going or when he would be back home. In the morning, the check would be tucked neatly beneath the statue of Robert E. Lee that his father had carved from a piece of driftwood, and his mother would rub his back and promise to deposit it at the bank as his father ate his breakfast. It was the only regular affection he noticed between them. They didn’t argue and avoided conflict as a rule. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company when they were together, and once, he’d caught them holding hands while watching TV; but in the eighteen years Steve had lived at home, he never saw his parents kiss.