These were the things she knew: That her birth parents had never married. That Andy was born the first year they were together. That her birth father, Jerry Randall, had died in a car accident while on a trip home to Chicago when Andy was eighteen months old.
Unlike Laura’s parents, who had both died before Andy was born, Andy still had grandparents on her birth father’s side—Laverne and Phil Randall. She had an old photo somewhere of herself, no more than two, sitting in their laps, balanced between each of their knees. There was a painting of the beach on the wood-paneled wall behind them. The couch looked scruffy. They seemed like kind people, and maybe they were in some ways, but they had completely cut off both Laura and Andy when Gordon had entered their lives.
Gordon—of all people. A Phi Beta Sigma who had graduated Georgetown Law while working as a volunteer coordinator at Habitat for Humanity. A man who played golf, loved classical music, was the president of his local wine-tasting society and had chosen for his vocation one of the most boring areas of the law, helping wealthy people figure out how their money would be spent after they died.
That Andy’s birth grandparents had balked at the dorkiest, most uptight black man walking the planet simply because of the color of his skin was enough to make Andy glad she didn’t have any contact with them.
The kitchen door opened. Andy watched Gordon stand up. He tripped the floodlights again. Laura handed him a plate of food. Gordon said something Andy could not hear. Laura slammed the door in lieu of response.
Through the kitchen window, she saw her mother making her way back to the table, gripping the counter, the doorjamb, the back of a chair—anything she could find to take the pressure off of her leg.
Andy could’ve helped her. She could’ve been down there making her mother tea or helping her wash off the hospital smell the way she’d done so many times before.
I’ve earned the right to be alone.
The TV by Andy’s bed caught her attention. The set was small, formerly taking up space on her mother’s kitchen counter. By habit, Andy had turned it on when she walked through the door. The sound was muted. CNN was showing the diner video again.
Andy closed her eyes, because she knew what the video showed.
She breathed in.
Out.
The air-conditioner hummed in her ears. The ceiling fan wah-wahed overhead. She felt cold air curl around her neck and face. She was so tired. Her brain was filled with slow-rolling marbles. She wanted to sleep, but she knew she could not sleep here. She would have to stay at Gordon’s tonight and then, first thing tomorrow morning, her father would require she make some kind of a plan. Gordon always wanted a plan.
A car door opened and closed. Andy knew it was her father because the McMansions along her mother’s street, all of them so huge that they literally blocked out the sun, were always vacant during the most extreme heat of the summer.
She heard scuffling feet across the driveway. Then Gordon’s heavy footsteps were on the metal stairs to the apartment.
Andy grabbed a trashbag out of the box. She was supposed to be packing. She opened the top drawer of her dresser and dumped her underwear into the bag.
“Andrea?” Gordon knocked on the door, then opened it.
He glanced around the room. It was hard to tell whether Andy had been robbed or a tornado had hit. Dirty clothes carpeted the floor. Shoes were piled on top of a flat box that contained two unassembled Ikea shoe racks. The bathroom door hung open. Her period panties from a week ago hung stiffly from the towel rod.
“Here.” Gordon offered the plate that Laura had given him. PB&J, chips and a pickle. “Your mom said to make sure you eat something.”
What else did she say?
“I asked for a bottle of wine, but got this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pint-sized bottle of Knob Creek. “Did you know your mother keeps bourbon in the house?”
Andy had known about her mother’s stash since she was fourteen.
“Anyway, I thought this might help tamp down some nerves. Take the edge off.” He broke the seal on the top. “What are the chances that you have some clean glasses in this mess?”
Andy put the plate on the floor. She felt underneath the sofa bed and found an open pack of Solo cups.
Gordon scowled. “I guess that’s better than passing the bottle back and forth like a couple of hobos.”
What did Mom say?
He poured two fingers of bourbon into the deep cup. “Eat something before you have a drink. Your stomach’s empty and you’re tired.”
Belle Isle Andy hadn’t had a drink since she’d returned home. She wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted to break the streak. Still, she took a cup and sat cross-legged on the floor so that her dad could sit in the chair.
He sniffed at the chair. “Did you get a dog?”
Andy sucked down a mouthful of bourbon. The 100 proof made her eyes water.
He said, “We should toast your birthday.”
She pressed together her lips.
He held up the cup. “To my beautiful daughter.”
Andy held up her drink, too. Then she took another sip.
Gordon didn’t imbibe. He dug into his suit pocket and retrieved a white mailing envelope. “I got you these. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to wrap them in something pretty.”
Andy took the envelope. She already knew what was inside. Gordon always bought her gift cards because he knew the stores she liked, but he had no idea what she liked from those stores. She dumped the contents onto the floor. Two $25 gas cards for the station down the street. Two $25 iTunes cards. Two $25 Target gift cards. One $50 gift card to Dick Blick for art supplies. She picked up a piece of paper. He had printed out a coupon for a free sandwich at Subway when you bought one of equal or lesser value.
He said, “I know you like sandwiches. I thought we could go together. Unless you want to take someone else.”
“These are great, Dad. Thank you.”
He swished around the bourbon but still did not drink. “You should eat.”
Andy bit into the sandwich. She looked up at Gordon. He was touching his mustache again, smoothing it down the same way he stroked Mr. Purrkins’ shoulders.
He said, “I have no idea what’s going through your mother’s mind.”
Andy’s jaw made a grinding noise as she chewed. She might as well have been eating paste and cardboard.
He said, “She told me to let you know that she’s going to pay off your student loans.”
Andy choked on the bite.
“That was my response, too.” Her student loans were a sore point with Gordon. He had offered to refinance the debt in order to help Andy get out from under $800’s worth of interest a month, but for reasons known only to her id, she had passed his deadline for gathering all the paperwork.
He said, “Your mother wants you to move back to New York City. To pursue your dreams. She said she’d help you with the move. Financially, I mean. Suddenly, she’s very free with her money.”
Andy worked peanut butter off the roof of her mouth with her tongue.
“You can stay with me tonight. We’ll work out something tomorrow. A plan. I—I don’t want you going back to New York, sweetheart. You never seemed happy up there. I felt like it took a piece of you; took away some of your Andy-ness.”
Andy’s throat made a gulping sound as she swallowed.
“When you moved back home, you were so good taking care of Mom. So good. But maybe that was asking too much. Maybe I should’ve helped more or . . . I don’t know. It was a lot for you to take on. A lot of pressure. A lot of stress.” His voice was thick with guilt, like it was his fault that Laura got cancer. “Mom’s right that you need to start your life. To have a career and maybe, I don’t know, maybe one day a family.” He held up his hand to stop her protest. “Okay, I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but whatever the problem is, I just don’t think going back to New York is the answer.”
Gordon’s head turned toward the television. Something had caught his eye. “That’s—from high school. What’s her—”
Motherfucker.
CNN had identified Alice Blaedel, one of Andy’s friends from high school, as a Close Friend of the Family.