Miles passed beneath the wheels as she clicked and tapped and backspaced and rearranged.
Finally, she glanced up. “First off, Lisa was crazy. And probably seriously clinically mentally ill, along with being full-on stupid. I don’t know what she was talking about because you’re an expert-level communicator. You know that, right? That she was flat-out making shit up, probably to make herself feel better about leaving…? Also, you have the biggest, warmest, kindest heart of any man I’ve ever met.”
Then why don’t you want to be more than fuck buddies with me? Things not to say at the one-hour mark of a five-plus-hour drive.
Shay took his silence as the expert-level evasion of honest communication that it was, saying, “Okay, sorry, let’s focus on this. I pretty much took what you told me and made it Maddie-friendly.” She read aloud.
Life with Lisa was a roller coaster. When she loved me, she loved me, and it was amazing. But when someone else caught her eye—and it happened more than once—I was brokenhearted.
We danced that dance—on again, off again; euphoria and heartache—for years. I always forgave her—how could I not? She was Lisa, and I loved her. I knew I’d never change her, although I always hoped that someday she’d surrender.
And that was my mistake, because I know you know your mother. Better than I ever did. And surrender was the last thing she’d ever do.
But man, that year—when Lisa was pregnant, and right after you were born—it was the best, and the worst. I was scared to death. We were both so young—how were we going to take care of a baby? But then, Jesus, you were this tiny little thing, and we both fell completely in love with you and for a while it was better than it ever was, because you were in my life.
Shay covered it all—Pete’s lack of a job, his joining the Navy, his days away at sea, his heartache when Lisa took Maddie and left.
“But really, my biggest mistake,” Pete said, when she’d reached the end. “Write that. Please.”
Shay nodded and her fingers flew across her keyboard.
“My biggest mistake was letting you go,” he dictated.
My biggest mistake was letting you go. After your mother took you away, I told myself that it was better not to push to see you. I convinced myself that your life would be better without my grief and anger. Jesus, I was so angry. I let myself become as cold and as hard as Lisa claimed I was. I didn’t just lose you, Maddie; I lost myself because I didn’t fight to find you—I didn’t even try to get you back. I was wrong, and you have every right to be angry at me for abandoning you. I will regret my inaction for the rest of my life.
I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive me. Hell, I hope someday I’ll be able to forgive myself. In the meantime, I hope you’ll take a chance and get to know me. We have a lot in common. We both really loved your amazing, imperfect, irreplaceable mother.
Maddie sat on the crumbling stoop of the foundation of a disappeared cabin that had once been part of Manzanar’s Block Twenty-Four, gazing out at the distant mountains as Dingo finished reading the latest email that her stupid father’s stupid girlfriend had sent.
Ding was trying to wipe his eyes surreptitiously. God, he was stupid, too. Didn’t he know that girls liked boys who were sensitive enough to cry?
Of course, he’d made it clear that he didn’t want Maddie to like him.
After she’d woken up from her nap beneath the picnic table, after she’d discovered that he’d used her phone to text Shayla with a We’ll meet you tomorrow message, Maddie’d had a major WTF attack. She’d stomped her way through the site’s museum-y parts with Dingo trailing after her.
She’d sat in stony silence as they’d taken the drive around the camp—there was a road around the entire thing, with another parking lot here, on the far end, near the cemetery. At which point, they’d gotten out. She’d given Dingo her phone with an order to text Shayla back and cancel all plans, but instead he’d found and read her The Story of Peter and Lisa, Chapter Four.
“Imagine having to bury your baby here,” Maddie said now. Some of the markers on the graves in the cemetery were for young children, because face it, back in the 1940s, children died. They still sometimes died. “First you’re rounded up, despite living in America for your entire life, and then you’re locked in here, in the middle of nowhere. And then your three-year-old gets the flu and dies. And she’s in the ground, right there, but then, whoops, war’s over. Everyone go home—sorry about the whole violating-your-constitutional-rights thing! Our bad! You have until Tuesday to pack up and leave, good luck! So you’re just supposed to trot on back to San Diego, and every time you want to tend your baby’s grave, it’s an eleven-hour round trip. Longer, because cars didn’t drive as fast back then.”
Dingo sat down next to her. “I can’t imagine that.”
“My grandfather’s sister—Hiroko’s sister, too,” Maddie said, gesturing with her chin. “She’s buried right there. Lisa told me about her. She was three, she was fine, and then, boom, she was dead. Her name was Shinju, but I can’t read Japanese, so I don’t know which grave is hers.”
Dingo took her hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said in his regular, non-Aussie voice.
“I hate you,” she told him.
“I know.”
“I’m not meeting my father and Shayla. Not tomorrow, not ever. You can just text them back and tell them that.”
“Okay,” he said. “But I’ll wait until tomorrow. They’re probably happy right now. Let’s at least let them sleep tonight.”
“Fuck you,” she said. “I don’t want to feel sorry for them.”
“How about Daryl?” Dingo asked. “Should we also not feel sorry for him?”
“Double fuck you.” That photo of Daryl, taken in the hospital, was terrifying. Obviously Nelson’s men had found him and beaten him up.
“I just don’t think we have a lot of options,” Dingo pointed out.
Maddie stood up. He was probably right, but she wasn’t ready to admit that. “I’m starving,” she said. “Let’s go find a nice restaurant and blow some of stupid Nelson’s stupid money on something good to eat.”
Izzy called Grunge from the street outside of the Dingler house in Van Nuys.
“Greene. You’re on speaker. I’m in the truck with Shayla.”
“Yo, Grunge,” Izzy said. “Last night’s quake was nothing compared to the shaking going on today in the SpecOps world with the news that you’re—”
“You’re on speaker,” Grunge repeated, louder this time, interrupting him.
“And with that, you’re implying Shayla doesn’t know,” Izzy said.
“Doesn’t know what?” he heard Shay say. Her voice was thin because she wasn’t in front of the Bluetooth mic.
“Zanella,” Grunge warned. He came in plenty loud. Probably because he was on the verge of shouting.
“Feel free to go all officer on my ass, sir, but you just might want to talk your potential resignation through with your girlfriend. I’m just saying.”