Frederick Busch - The Stories of Frederick Busch

He looked down at her pink sneakers. “Yes,” he said.

When Rosalie and Sasha returned, he looked up, then stood. Sasha carried two small canvas traveling bags. Rosalie carried two large bags and an over-the-shoulder carryall.

Stephen thought of the advice he gave to shattered men who called. He said something like “Wait,” he thought. They came to him with this, and he said, “Wait.”

“Daddy,” Sasha said. He saw that she’d put lots of fresh lipstick on.

Brigitte said, “Can we have some of the cake?”

That was when Rosalie’s face crumpled, but not in tears. She looked as though she fought not to laugh, and Stephen — as the counselor, now, addressing the husband — told himself not to hold that against her.

Stephen told them, “Just a minute, all right?” And he went to the drawer and found the cake server, then tore off several sheets of paper towel. He cut a wedge of chocolate cake with butter cream icing, and he handed it to Brigitte. She held it on her palm. Stephen stepped back to address them all, Sasha and Brigitte and Rosalie, their identical eyes. They paused with their baggage.

Brigitte said, “Thank you, Daddy.”

Sasha smiled and shrugged.

Stephen said, “Rosie.”

She said, “What?”

He tore off more towels, cut more cake, and came to offer it. He said, “For on the way.”

Rosalie shrugged as if echoing Sasha. She looked down at the luggage that occupied her hands. “No room,” she apologized.

“Of course,” Stephen said. Like three good guests, then, they waited politely. And then, slowly, to show him how reluctantly they left, they left. When the front door closed, he bit a piece of cake and stood in the kitchen and chewed. He heard himself humming the tune he had baked to, and then he remembered its name.

THE MORNING AFTER I drove to his newest town, I met my father for breakfast. He was wearing hunter’s camouflage clothing and looked as if he hadn’t slept for a couple of nights. He reminded me of one of those militia clowns you see on television news shows, very watchful and radiating a kind of high seriousness about imminent execution by minions of the state.

I knew he had deeper worries than execution. And I was pleased for him that he wore trousers and T-shirt, a soft, wide-brimmed cap, and hip-length jacket that would help him disappear into the stony landscape of upstate New York. He needs the camouflage, I thought, although where we stood — in the lobby of the James Fenimore Cooper Inn — he seemed a little out of place among the college kids and commercial travelers. The inn advertised itself as The Last of the Great Upstate Taverns. My father looked like The Last of the Great Upstate Guerrilla Fighters. Still, I thought, he’s got the gear, and one of these days he will blend right in.

“Hi, Baby,” he said. He tried to give me one of the old daddy-to-daughter penetrating stares, but his eyes bounced away from mine, and his glance slid down my nose to my chin, then down the front of my shirt to the oval silver belt buckle I had bought in Santa Fe.

“How are you, Daddy?”

He fired off another stare, but it ricocheted. “I have to tell you,” he said, “half of the time I’m flat scared.”

His shave was smooth, but he’d missed a couple of whiskers, which looked more gray than black. His face had gone all wrinkled and squinty. He looked like my father’s older brother, who was shaky and possibly ill and commuting from the farthest suburbs of central mental health. He took his cap off — doffed it, you would have to say. His hair looked soft. You could see how someone would want to reach over and touch it.

“But I don’t like to complain,” he said.

I got hold of his arm and pulled my way along his brown-and-sand-and-olive-green sleeve until I had his hand, which I held in both of mine. He used enough muscle to keep his arm in that position, but the hand was loose and cool, a kid’s.

I asked him, “Do you know what you’re scared of?”

He shrugged, and, when he did, I saw a familiar expression inside his tired, frightened face. He made one of those French frowns that suggested not giving a good goddamn, and it pleased me so much, even as it disappeared into his newer face, that I brought his hand up and kissed the backs of his fingers.

“Aw,” he said. I thought he was going to cry. I think he thought so too.

“Look,” I said, letting go of his hand, “I saw Mommy in New York. That’s where I drove up from. We had dinner two days ago. She asked me to remember her to you. She’s fine.”

He studied my words as if they had formed a complex thought. And then, as if I hadn’t said what he was already considering, he asked, “How is she?”

“She’s fine. I told you.”

“And she asked to be remembered to me.”

“Right.”

“You’re lying, Baby.”

“Correct.”

“She didn’t mention me.”

“Oh, she mentioned you.”

“Not in a friendly way.”

“No.”

“She was hostile, then?”

“Hurt, I’d say.”

He nodded. “I hate that — I didn’t want to hurt anybody,” he said. “I just wanted to feel better.”

“I know. Do you feel better?”

“Do I look it?”

“Well, with the outfit and all…”

“This stuff’s practical. You can wear it for weeks before you need to wash it. The rain runs off the coat. You don’t need to carry a lot of clothing with you.”

“Traveling light, then, is how you would describe yourself?”

“Yes,” my father said. “I would say I’m traveling light. But you didn’t answer me. How do I look?”

I walked past matching club chairs upholstered in maroon-and-aqua challis, and I looked out a window. A crew had taken down an old, broad maple tree. The sidewalk was buried under branches and bark, and a catwalk of plywood led from the street, around the downed tree, and into the inn. The tree was cut into round sections three or four feet across, and a man in a sweated undershirt was using a long-handled splitting maul to break up one of the sections. Behind him stood another man, who wore a yellow hard hat and an orange shirt and a yellow fluorescent safety vest. He held a long chain saw that shook as it idled. A woman wearing a man’s old-fashioned undervest, work gloves, and battered boots watched them both. Occasionally, she directed the man with the splitting maul. Her hair beneath her yellow hard hat looked reddish-gold. The one with the chain saw stared at the front of her shirt. She looked up and saw me. She looked at me through her safety goggles for a while and then she smiled. I couldn’t help smiling back.

“You look fine,” I said. “It’s a beautiful spring morning. Let’s eat.”

In the Natty Bumppo Room, we were served our juice and coffee by a chunky woman with a happy red face. My father ordered waffles, and I remembered how, when I was in elementary school, he heated frozen waffles in the toaster for me and spread on margarine and syrup. I remembered how broad his hands had seemed. Now, they shook as he spread the margarine. One of his camouflage cuffs had picked up some syrup, and he dripped a little as he worked at his meal. I kept sipping the black coffee, which tasted like my conception of a broth made from long-simmered laundry.

“The hardest part,” he said, “it drives me nuts. The thing with the checks.”

“Sure,” I said, watching the margarine and maple syrup coat his lips. “Mommy has to endorse your checks, then she has to deposit them, then she has to draw a bank check, and then she has to figure out where you are so she can send it along. It’s complicated.”

“I’m not making it that way on purpose,” he said.