He clenched his jaw. “He was not like my father in any way.”
“Okay.” Esther sighed. “Whatever you say.”
“But he was Dani’s father.”
“Dani’s father,” Esther said. “But not Jess’s.”
The heat pushed its way up into his limbs. He leaned over the counter, folded the top of the doughnut box down, and then squashed the box with the heels of his hands, flattening whatever remained inside. They all stared at him. Sean peeled off his elbow bandage and stuffed it inside the hole of the doughnut. His elbow scab had turned a reddish purple.
“Well, I guess that’s that.” Esther stood up and dusted her hands.
“Paul,” Iris said.
Paul pointed at the crushed box, angry at himself now for losing control. “Can we talk about something else?”
Esther said, “I have to be going anyway. I have to get to the bakery. Stop by if you like. Dani’s renting my guest house now. She works at the medical clinic. Alive and well.” She picked up her purse and walked to the door. She opened it and looked at him. “Adam’s still up in Kachina Village, as far as I know. Alone.” She smiled and shut the door with a gentle click.
Paul stared at the flattened box. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Iris watching him as she wrung the cloth in her hands. Sean swiveled his stool from side to side. His fingers were brown with maple glaze.
“Don’t ask me if I’m okay,” he said to Iris.
“I’m not. I won’t.”
To Sean, Paul said, “Okay, let’s get you cleaned up, buddy. Grandma’s taking you to the library for story time.”
“I am,” Iris said. “You bet.”
“We’re family, right, Grandma?” Sean said.
“That’s right, honey,” she said to Sean, but looking at Paul. “We sure are.”
Paul lifted Sean from the stool and carried him to the sink, biting his lip at the pain in his wrist. He turned on the faucet and lifted the boy up by the waist. “Rinse.”
Sean rubbed his hands under the stream of water. “What happened to your friend, Daddy? Did she die too?”
“I don’t know, buddy.” Paul glanced at his mother, who cupped her hand over her mouth. He held the boy tight and let the water run.
Paul reset the ladder at the right pitch and climbed up. He kept scraping. The old paint had blistered and cracked, and he had to scrape down to bare wood. He’d have to prime before he put on another coat. His father had taught him that, too. Not Adam Newell. If he had a father figure beyond his own, it was Caryn’s father, Ken, a retired police detective who cried at old songs and weddings and baby pictures.
If Paul was honest, though, it wasn’t as simple as his denial to Esther and his mother. The Newells indeed had been a family to him, and Adam a kind of parent. Of course they had. Given the timing—he’d started dating Dani six months after his father died—it would have been strange had he not attached himself as he had, if he hadn’t lunged to the safety of their vessel, clinging like a drowning victim. The first time Paul had walked into the Newells’ house, in fact, he’d had the sensation of floating. No sense of waking in the dark and wondering where he was, if anything would be right again. No blanket of grief smothering him until he ran into the orchard and ran. No dreams and imaginings of his father’s last moment before he fell over dead with a rake in hand. No Iris hovering, worrying, checking on him every five minutes, wanting him to quit track because he could get hurt. With the Newells, he found a family intact, dazzling in their wit and stories, comforting in both their togetherness and their autonomy. Adam, Rachel, and Dani Newell. Father, mother, daughter. All three of them, nuclear, unexploded. Their steadiness steadied him. He felt all right, there.
And of course he’d found Dani there, too. Pretty, brainy, privately wild Dani Newell, whom he thought he’d love until the end of days. Until the night when everything began to unravel, when the anger first forced its way through.
The night before Thanksgiving, Paul helped his mother and Jess close down after Sundown at the Orchard. He waited until Iris climbed in bed, and then he crept outside, running through the orchard toward the river, to the path that would take him the back way into town, to Dani’s. The bright moon guided him through the trees. Nestled in his backpack was a new box of condoms. It wasn’t very late, after ten, so he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to climb in her window, if Adam would still be up painting or if Rachel would be up reading or getting ready for tomorrow’s dinner. Maybe they could sneak out into the backyard. The thought was sexy: to be out there in the cold dark with the glowing window above them, the moon lighting up their bodies. He felt himself grow hard. God, he loved Dani, and god, he loved sex. Fucking, she called it sometimes, in his ear, and he thought he’d lose his mind. Fuck me, she’d say, and Jesus, he’d almost go right then before he was inside her.
He was deep in the trees, almost to the river trail, when he heard a noise. A scuffling, a low swish of leaves, a crack of twigs. His first thought was javelina, and he stopped, looking around. It would be bad to startle a pack. Then he saw the source: two people standing against a tree. He’d started to walk toward them, puzzled, thinking at first they were tourists. A man and a girl. He’d been about to call out, Hello, what’s going on? Can I help you? when the man stepped forward and touched the girl’s face.
The man said, “God, Jess. Look at you.”
The voice startled Paul so much he fell to his knees. He knew that voice. He crawled toward a tree trunk and pressed himself against it. He held his breath. An owl hooted. He peered around the tree, trying to calm his gasping breaths. He stared at Adam’s face, at the sharp curve of his nose in profile. He recognized Jess’s puffy coat then, her curly hair sticking out from her wool cap. He couldn’t look away.
“I love you,” Adam said, his hand on her face.
Paul kneeled in the damp grass and watched as Adam kissed her forehead, and then he began to crawl along the path toward his house. He crawled and crawled and then leaped to his feet and tried to run. But he was aroused. He was shocked and aroused and ashamed at his arousal all at once. He stumbled at an awkward gait, his pack slamming his spine, chased by the image of Adam’s face and his declaration in the moonlight, by the burning rage building in his belly. Not a father. A man, his jaw clenched with desire.