Em almost said, Are you sure you don't mind this? but that was the kind of thing you said when a stranger offered to do you a favor. Or a different kind of father.
"You going there to run?" he asked. She could hear a smile in his voice. "There's plenty of beach to run on, and a good long stretch of road, too. As you well know. And you won't have to elbow people out of your way. Between now and October, Vermillion is as quiet as it ever gets."
"I'm going there to think. And-I guess-to finish mourning."
"That's all right, then," he said. "Want me to book your flight?"
"I can do that."
"Sure you can. Emmy, are you okay?"
"Yes," she said.
"You sound like you might be crying."
"A little bit," she said, and wiped her face. "It all happened very fast." Like Amy's death, she could have added. She had done it like a little lady; never a peep from the baby monitor. Leave quietly, don't slam the door, Em's own mother often said when Em was a teenager.
"Henry won't come there to the hotel and bother you, will he?"
She heard a faint, delicate hesitation before he chose bother, and smiled in spite of her tears, which had pretty well run their course, anyway. "If you're asking if he's going to come and beat me up...that's not his style."
"A man sometimes finds a different style when his wife up and leaves him-just takes off running."
"Not Henry," she said. "He's not a man to cause trouble."
"You sure you don't want to come to Tallahassee first?"
She hesitated. Part of her did, but-
"I need a little time on my own. Before anything else." And she repeated, "All this happened very fast." Although she suspected it had been building for quite some time. It might even have been in the DNA of the marriage.
"All right. Love you, Emmy."
"Love you, too, Dad. Thank you." She swallowed. "So much."
Henry didn't cause trouble. Henry didn't even ask where she was calling from. Henry said, "Maybe you're not the only one who needs a little time apart. Maybe this is for the best."
She resisted an urge-it struck her as both normal and absurd-to thank him. Silence seemed like the best option. What he said next made her glad she'd chosen it.
"Who'd you call for help? The Motor-Pool King?"
This time the urge she resisted was to ask if he'd called his mother yet. Tit for tat never solved anything.
She said-evenly, she hoped: "I'm going to Vermillion Key. My dad's place there."
"The conch shack." She could almost hear him sniff. Like Ho Hos and Twinkies, houses with only three rooms and no garage were not a part of Henry's belief system.
Em said, "I'll call you when I get there."
A long silence. She imagined him in the kitchen, head leaning against the wall, hand gripping the handset of the phone tight enough to turn his knuckles white, fighting to reject anger. Because of the six mostly good years they'd had together. She hoped he would make it. If that was indeed what was going on.
When he spoke next, he sounded calm but tired out. "Got your credit cards?"
"Yes. And I won't overuse them. But I want my half of-" She broke off, biting her lip. She had almost called their dead child the baby, and that wasn't right. Maybe it was for her father, but not for her. She started again.
"My half of Amy's college money," she said. "I don't suppose there's much, but-"
"There's more than you think," he said. He was starting to sound upset again. They had begun the fund not when Amy was born, or even when Em got pregnant, but when they first started trying. Trying had been a four-year process, and by the time Emily finally kindled, they were talking about fertility treatments. Or adoption. "Those investments weren't just good, they were blessed by heaven-especially the software stocks. Mort got us in at the right time and out at the absolute golden moment. Emmy, you don't want to take the eggs out of that nest."
There he was again, telling her what she wanted to do.
"I'll give you an address as soon as I have one," she said. "Do whatever you want with your half, but make mine a cashier's check."
"Still running," he said, and although that professorial, observational tone made her wish he was here so she could throw another book at him-a hardcover this time-she held her silence.
At last he sighed. "Listen, Em, I'm going to clear out of here for a few hours. Come on in and get your clothes or your whatever. And I'll leave some cash for you on the dresser."
For a moment she was tempted; then it occurred to her that leaving money on the dresser was what men did when they went to whores.
"No," she said. "I want to start fresh."
"Em." There was a long pause. She guessed he was struggling with his emotions, and the thought of it caused her own eyes to blur over again. "Is this the end of us, kiddo?"
"I don't know," she said, working to keep her own voice straight. "Too soon to tell."
"If I had to guess," he said, "I'd guess yes. Today proves two things. One is that a healthy woman can run a long way."
"I'll call you," she said.