“Yea!” Andrea cries, and her glee at the prospect of me kicking around with them warms me on the inside.
Laurel smiles at me cautiously. “I’d love that, Michael,” she agrees. “I’d love to have you with us all day.”
“And who’s up for some waffles?” I ask.
This one really gets a reaction out of Andrea, because she loves to pour the batter into the iron. “Can I help?” she asks, already scrambling to her feet.
“We’ll make them together,” I say, and she beams with delight. I’m not sure we’ve made waffles like that since Allie died. Which leads me to believe that Laurel’s visit may actually be a good thing.
After breakfast, Laurel, Andrea and I bike around Studio City. It’s so damned hot I swear I might expire by the time we peddle past the public golf course. So we stop for a small lunchtime picnic that Laurel has prepared for us, spread out on a park bench right along the roadside, beneath leafy palms that provide us some reprieve.
Laurel’s got her long black hair swept up into a neat ponytail, looking more athlete than hippie today. I can relax around her more this way, because she reminds me of Alex in her Nikes and running shorts, fixing me with that clear blue gaze. Not sure if it was my long talk with Rebecca, or maybe the painting, but some of my bile seems to have dissipated. I’ve even had fun, biking around like a family.
Andrea seems to catch onto that vibe. “People probably think you’re my parents,” she says, taking a bite of her turkey sandwich. Poking through her lunch sack, she inspects the rest of what Laurel’s packed.
I slip my arm around her. “Well, I am your father,” I remind her with a forced laugh. There seems no other way to respond. Thankfully, Laurel avoids us both.
“Michael. You know what I mean.” Andie sighs in exasperation. “That you’re my father and Aunt Laurel’s my mother. That’s probably what people think, seeing us here.”
“The assumptions people make,” I reply numbly, and Laurel looks away, out at the passing traffic.
“We could pretend that it’s true,” Andie suggests. “That you’re my parents, just for today. That would be cool. Aunt Laurel, I’ll call you Mommy all day and you have to answer.” She turns to me, excited, but then her expression becomes perturbed—what will she call me?
“I could be Daddy,” I suggest gently. “Just for today.”
“If I’m Mommy, then Michael definitely gets to be Daddy,” Laurel agrees, her eyes meeting mine for a fleeting moment. “That’s only fair.”
“Okay,” Andrea agrees reluctantly as she thinks on it a little more, taking another bite of her sandwich. “But only for today.” Then she spies a cat nosing around in the bushes behind us, and goes to offer it a tiny bit of turkey, leaving me alone for the first time all morning with Laurel.
Neither of us knows what to say, but then I break that silence. “Loved the painting, Laurel. It’s gorgeous. I’ve gotta figure out where to put it, though.”
“Maybe with all the rest of them?” she suggests with a wry smile. Busted.
“I kinda figured you’d notice that.” I nod, staring out at traffic, avoiding her. “That I took the others down.”
“If you don’t want them—”
I silence her with my upraised hand. “I want them, Laurel. I want them and you’re not getting them back.”
“Well, it’s just, they’re like my children, Michael. Do you understand?” Her right eyebrow migrates upward toward her hairline as she talks, a physical trait of Alex’s. The more excited or agitated he got, the more his eyebrow did the exact same thing. “They’re connected to me, part of me. It hurts, not knowing where they are.”
I ignore the comment about her children. I ignore all that she’s just managed to cram into those few short sentences. Gently, I lift my hand and touch her eyebrow, tracing the outline of it with my forefinger. “They’re in the attic,” I almost whisper. “Wrapped in paper, boxed really careful.” The silky shape of that eyebrow, so familiar beneath my finger, the brush of the hairs, the dramatic lift…it’s so like his that it almost breaks me.
Laurel blushes, dropping her head. But she doesn’t ask why I’m touching her, thank God. Maybe she understands. “Oh. Good,” she says, nodding as I drop my hand away. “That’s good.”
“I have always loved your work, Laurel,” I say, even more softly. “That never changed.”
Tears fill her eyes. “I dreamed the one of Alex. The one I gave you last night,” she explains. “It sang to me, in a dream.”
“That’s kind of weird.”
“No, it’s not,” she insists seriously. “It sang for you, Michael.”
Andrea returns, interrupting my thoughts. “Mommy,” she announces, jarring me, “look what I found!” She’s carrying a smooth, flat rock, held like treasure in her small open palm. “You can paint on it.”