“That’s certainly romantic.”
“It’s because he isn’t looking, Claire. He only goes there once every two weeks because he doesn’t need much. And on the lake where he lives is a little store that sells bait, some lettuce and tomatoes in the summer months, and some canned goods. More expensive, but he feels a loyalty to the old man or the local kids he hires who are usually behind the cash register. The woman at the supermarket is standing in the self-checkout lane, and he is waiting to go next, since he always checks his own groceries through because of his impatience with the cashiers and baggers who sometimes chat distractedly while scanning things.”
“I remember that about him,” Claire said. “His impatience.”
“Is that right?” Genevieve said, and smiled. She sat back and let the wind through the car windows blow the hair away from her long neck. Claire already felt completely pulled in.
“She is staring at the checkout computer, holding a plastic bag of yellow delicious apples in her hand, trying to figure out how to scan it through. She’s aware of your father’s impatience, and smiles apologetically at him, and she tells him that she never buys apples, she just needs something that reminds her of summer. She’s wearing a full-length wool coat, since it’s a cold February in a cold winter, and she is pretty, maybe a few years younger than he is, her eyes made up, her hair cut short but over her collar, her earrings silver, catching light as they dangle alongside her neck. He tells her you have to punch in the code, that it’s on the little stickers. 4-0-2-0. ‘What, are you the store manager or something?’ she says, smiling. He laughs lightly at this and tells her, ‘I’ve been through this checkout line a few times.’”
Genevieve stopped for a moment, and turned and looked at the passing landscape.
“What was your father’s name?”
“You asked me that already. It’s Marc.”
“That’s right. And what was the name of the woman who called you on the phone and told you your father was sick?”
“Kathleen.”
“Kathleen. She asks him out to coffee, which surprises him. She sits across from him at the small, round table, the late-winter sun streaming through a window, warming them. She does most of the talking, not because she’s particularly chatty, but because, during these years of solitude, he’s grown used to not talking to anyone, particularly women, other than his sisters.”
“He does have sisters,” Claire said. “Two of them.” She again had the sensation that, as they headed east, they were driving back through the past.
“He’s the kind of man who has sisters,” Genevieve said. “Kathleen can tell that, too. But your father’s unaware of it. He’s watching Kathleen’s face. He sees how she’s penciled over her eyebrows, blackening them to match her deep, dark eyes, and in the bright light, through her makeup, he sees the tiny fissures in her skin, around the corners of her mouth, beneath her eyelids, and he’s touched by her effort to conceal them. She has been married, she says, divorced now for five years, and he asks her why she still wears a ring on her left hand, and she tells him she got used to it, the weight of it on her hand, and when she takes it off, it feels like her finger will float away. ‘I guess it’s cost me a few dates,’ she says, and laughs. She has two children, both grown, both married, a son and a daughter, but no grandchildren yet. One lives in Detroit, the other in Pittsburgh, and she tells him she’s accustomed to seeing them only a few times a year. And then she asks Marc about his own kids.
“The question takes him by surprise. He realizes he hasn’t talked to anyone but longtime friends for several years, and they already knew the story of how Claire disappeared.”
Claire felt her skin flush hot. Genevieve hovered over those words for only a few seconds before going on.
“Your father only smiles, searching for a way to respond, and Kathleen says, ‘No children, then, Marc?’ And he coughs once, runs his hand through his hair, trying to figure out what to tell her. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he finally says. Kathleen laughs at this, and tells him if he didn’t know for sure, he must have been some kind of ladies’ man when he was young. He likes the lilt to her voice, its suggestive wink, and he likes its depth, which reveals her years. He says, ‘No, hardly. I don’t mean it like that at all.’ But Kathleen doesn’t pursue him on it. She says, ‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. You’re a very nice-looking man.’”
Claire pulled past a semi, and Genevieve stopped speaking as the roar of its engine poured through the windows. Claire’s throat was tight, and she had to remind herself that this was only Genevieve’s imagination working on her.
When they passed the truck, she asked, “You really think he wouldn’t even tell her about me? That I was never his child?”