He smiles again. “I know this must come as quite the surprise now that you’re able to perceive these kinds of things.”
Understatement of the year. My mouth feels dry, like it’s been hanging open for a while.
“Your mother?” he prompts.
Right. Here I was just staring at him. I start down the hall.
“Can I get you anything? Like a glass of water or juice or coffee or whatever?” I babble as we pass the kitchen. I realize that I don’t know him at all. I don’t know my father well enough to know what kind of beverage he prefers.
“No, thank you,” he says politely. “Just your mother.”
We reach Mom’s door. I knock. Carolyn answers it. Her eyes go straight to my dad, and her face instantly goes slack with astonishment, eyes so wide it almost looks cartoonish.
“He—uh—he wanted to see Mom.”
She recovers quickly, nods, then steps out of the way so we can pass into the room.
Mom is sleeping, propped up on pillows, her long auburn hair spread out around her face, her face pale but peaceful. Dad sits in the chair next to her bed and touches a strand of hair, that one at the front that’s gone silver. He reaches down and gently takes her hand in both of his.
She stirs, sighs.
“All days are nights to see till I see thee, / And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me,” Dad whispers.
Her eyes open. “Michael.”
“Hello, beautiful.” He lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it, places it against his cheek.
I don’t know what I expected if my parents ever happened to bump into each other again.
Not this. It’s like there was never any leaving us standing in the driveway while he drove away.
Never any divorce. Never any separation at all.
“How long can you stay?” she asks.
“A while,” he answers. “Long enough.”
She closes her eyes. Smiles this beautiful smile. When she opens her eyes again there are tears in them. Happy tears. My dad is making my mom cry happy tears.
Carolyn, who’s been standing at the back of the room, coughs delicately. “I’m going to be on my way. I don’t think you’ll need me.”
Mom nods. “Thank you, Carolyn. And if you could do me an enormous favor, please don’t mention this to anyone. Not even the congregation. Please.”
“Of course,” Carolyn says, and then she closes the door.
Mom finally seems to notice I’m here. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Hi,” I answer dazedly, unable to look away from my parents’ hands, still joined.
“How’s your day going?” she asks, the hint of mischief in her voice I haven’t heard for weeks now.
“Oh, fine. I just found out that my dad’s an angel,” I say offhandedly. “It’s kind of blowing my mind.”
“I thought it would.”
“This is the thing, right? The thing you’re not telling me?” Her eyes sparkle. I’m floored by how happy she looks. It’s impossible to be mad at her when she looks like that.
“I’ve been waiting to tell you for so long. You have no idea.” She laughs, a weak but delighted sounded. “But first I’m going to need two things. A cup of tea. And your brother.” Dad volunteers to make the tea. “I think I can still remember how,” he says, and strides off to the kitchen.
That means I’m in charge of fetching Jeffrey.
He’s in his room, as usual. Music blaring. As usual. He must not have even heard the doorbell, or maybe he didn’t care. He’s lying in his bed reading a Sports Illustrated, still in his pj’s and it’s getting close to noon. Slacker. Where was he when I was neck deep in laundry? He glares at me when I come in. As usual.
“Don’t you knock?”
“I did. You might want to have your hearing checked.”
He reaches and turns down his stereo. “What do you want?” I can’t decide how much to tell him here, or how to break it to him. So I go for the direct approach. “Dad’s here.”
He goes still, then turns to me like he really does need to have his hearing checked. “Did you say Dad was here?”
“He showed up about ten minutes ago.”
How long has it been for him, I wonder, since he last saw Dad? How old was he then?
Eleven? Jeffrey wasn’t even two years old yet when Dad left, not old enough to remember anything but those few times we visited him, the birthday cards with cash in them, the gifts, which were typically extravagant (like Jeffrey’s truck, which was his birthday gift from Dad this year), the handful of phone calls, which were generally brief.
“Just come downstairs,” I tell him.
We arrive in time to see Dad burn himself on the tea-kettle. He doesn’t curse or jump back or anything. He examines his finger like he’s curious about what just occurred. There’s no damage to his skin, not even a red mark, but he must have felt it. He goes back to pouring Mom’s tea, setting her teacup on a delicate china saucer with some vanilla cookies he must have found in the pantry. Two lumps of sugar. A dollop of cream. Just how she likes.
“Oh, there you are,” he says when he sees us. “Hello, son.”
“What are you doing here?” Jeffrey’s voice is sharp, almost cracking. “Who are you?” Dad’s expression sobers. “I’m your father.” It’s impossible to deny that, seeing the two of them standing so close together. Jeffrey is like a shorter, bulkier carbon copy of Dad. They have the same hair, the exact same eyes.
“Let’s go see your mother,” Dad says. “She can explain.” It takes her all day to tell the story, because she doesn’t have the strength to tell it all at once. That and we keep getting interrupted, first by Billy, who bursts in and gives Dad a giant bear hug, calls him Mikey, actually gets all teary-eyed for a minute, she’s so happy for Mom. She knew, of course. All this time, she knew. But I guess I stopped being surprised by that kind of thing a while ago.
Then there’s the fact that Jeffrey keeps freaking and walking out of the room. It’s like he can only stand to hear so much before he thinks his head will explode. Mom’ll say something about the way she always knew, deep down, that she and Michael (my dad’s name, which we have almost never heard her utter, these last fourteen or so years) were meant to be together, and Jeffrey will get up, tug at his hair, nod or mumble something incoherent, then leave. We have to wait for him to come back before she can finish the story.