She nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, goody. That’s wonderful. Stay there and I’ll go get him.”
She disappeared into the house and as soon as she was out of earshot I turned to Perry.
“Interested in his boat?”
Her lip snarled defensively. “Well we couldn’t quite say that you were his long lost son.” She looked around her. “They are in a nice neighborhood, they have money. People always think the worst before they think the best.”
She had a point and soon after, a man appeared at the door in a wheelchair, shadowed by the doorframe. The woman appeared beside him. “You can come up here. The ramp is at the side of the house but if this won’t take long…”
I raised a palm. “That’s fine,” I said, smiling even though some small part of me, maybe my toe, felt bad for the fucker already. I grabbed Perry’s hand and we walked up toward the front door.
And there, in a wheelchair, staring at me with begrudged curiosity, was my father. He didn’t look as happy as the woman had seemed and I assumed that whatever business there was to be done about the boat, well it pleased her more than it did him.
“I’m Curtis,” the man said and his Irish accent still lingered. It brought back a lot of memories. Most of them uncomfortable but some of them, a few of them, good.
Suddenly, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say anything at all. I was standing in front of my father, the man who had abandoned me all those years ago, left me with my mother and a nanny but with no wages to pay a nanny. He fucked off and he ruined everything – or at least he didn’t help. Over the years I had come to realize that everyone was at fault, not just him. Still, even facing him in his wheelchair, all these years later, I couldn’t help but think of him as a coward.
I vowed right there and then to never do that to my child, no matter if he saw ghosts, was as normal as apple pie, or happened to be the anti-Christ. There was love and there was pride and the former should always trump the latter.
“My name is Dex,” I said, and I swear I saw his brow raise for a minute. He reminded me a lot of Gregory Peck, all overgrown black eyebrows and silver-coated hair. “This is Perry, my fiancé,” I said, motioning to her. She smiled sweetly and I knew it warmed him over just a bit. Despite what she thought, she had that effect on people. She counteracted me in the best way.
“Very nice to meet you,” he said with a sharp nod, though his eyes were focused on me. He looked like he was trying to jog his memory, perhaps trying to place my name or my face and was coming up empty. “So you’re interested in buying Green Glass, is that it?”
That must have been the boat’s name. I figured we only had a finite amount of time before we had to come clean.
“Could you answer a few questions about her?” I asked, without saying yes or no.
He nodded and his palms kneaded the armrest of his chair. “Why not?”
“I read in the paper that you won a regatta. Has the boat won anything else besides that?”
He grinned, just for a moment. He had nice teeth. I guess the rich could afford that. Then again, I had nice teeth because of the settlement he left me through my mother, so I shut that thought up.
“That was a good ol’ fluke,” he said. “My buddies and I, we’re always racing off of Nantucket, Martha’s, all the haunts. I decided to go for it, you know, have a laugh or two. I took my buddy on as my skipper since I can’t do much with this damn arthritis and all. Somehow we won. But, if you paid attention to the ad, I never passed the ship off as a racing boat. We were just lucky.”
“Arthritis?” I asked and his face immediately went sharp.
“Yes,” he said defensively. “Plus I had an accident a few years ago. I don’t let that stop me from doing things though.”
“That lady,” Perry said, “is she your wife?”
He nodded. “Aye. Margaret. Been married about…”
While he trailed off I said, “at least fifteen years.”
He frowned but said, “That seems about right.”
“Were you married before her?” Perry asked and now I knew we were getting down to brass taxes.
“How is this relevant to the boat?” he asked, brow raised in such a way that it made Perry flinch. Not because he looked scary, but because he looked a lot like me. We were down to the wire now. Time to come clean before they called the cops.
“So Green Glass is for sale,” I mused, combing my hand through my hair, trying not to appear anxious but failing. Half of me wanted to just turn around and pretend this never happened but I knew I couldn’t do that. I needed this, closure in some shape or form. I never got it while my mother was alive, I needed it with my father, especially after I knew what had happened to Michael.
“Yes it is,” he said, eyes narrowed. “But my marriages have nothing to do with it.”
I nodded. “I understand. The truth is, we actually don’t want to buy your boat, Mr. O’Shea. I mean, I love sailboats and everything but I just don’t think I’d buy one here, on the east coast. We live on the west coast.”
“So you’re wasting my time,” he said gruffly, his hands going to wheel himself away.
“Maybe,” I said, “maybe not. It’s not a waste of my time. You see, if I had a boat, I’d probably call it Fat Rabbit. Or, maybe not. Maybe I’d call it Michael.” He stiffened slightly. “Or Regine.” Now his jaw was clenched. “Or Declan. But it’s pretty lame naming a boat after yourself. I’m not Donald Trump.”
I kept my eyes on him the whole time and I recognized that acquiescence in them. The way his chin dropped a bit, his shoulder slumped slightly. His eyes took on this weight, as if I had just demanded the world from him. But that wasn’t the case at all.
“You’re Curtis O’Shea,” I said. “You’re my father. And I don’t want anything from you. Even though you fucked right off when I needed you most, you still made sure I was taken care of. And I was. I did good for myself, at least I think so. So don’t worry. I’m not here to cause trouble or law suits or whatever you East Coasters do with your time. I just wanted to see you, that’s all. And I wanted to know you were alive. I wanted you to know I was alive. Simple.”
He stared at me in disbelief for the longest time. I thought he might have had a stroke. But eventually he pulled himself out of his tailspin and blinked at me. “Declan,” he said and he sounded just as I remembered, only less mad.
“That’s me.” And suddenly I felt my heart crumbling into tiny little pieces. Shit. That was unexpected. I looked away, trying to keep the water behind my eyes.
There was a swath of silence between us and in it, my emotions were building. “It is you,” he said after a moment. “My god.”
“Well, I’m not god,” I quipped. “But Perry calls me that sometimes.”
She stared at me like she was going to murder me but I didn’t care. I smiled at him. “Sorry, she’s used to it by now. And what can I say, I guess I’m just being a nervous pervous here. Honestly, I don’t mean anything by this, I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to say hello. We’ll be on our way.”
I took Perry by the elbow and turned her around but my father cleared his throat and said, “Wait.”
We turned to look at him and he managed a weak smile. “Wait,” he repeated. “Don’t go. There’s a lot to…explain. Talk about. Margaret doesn’t know, you see.” The minute he said that, his face recoiled in panic, as if he instantly regretted it.
But I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. We aren’t here to tell her anything. If you want to keep on like you’ve been keeping on, I can do the same. I’m an old pro.” I know it wasn’t exactly polite, but I was throwing passive digs in there whenever I could.
He nodded quickly. “Thank you,” he said. “I made some mistakes in my past.” He smiled unsurely at me. “Not you, Declan. Not those kind of mistakes. Other kinds. There’s a lot I would rather forget. But, not you. There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about you.” He paused and then added like an afterthought. “Or Michael.”
For the first time, I was able to see my parents talk about Michael and his reality. My father said his name like he was scared. All this time I thought I was the one they didn’t want. All this time I had beating myself up.
“When I heard about Regine,” he said quietly, looking at the flowers along the stoop, “I wanted to reach out, to say something. But I was afraid. I didn’t know how I’d handle you boys. I didn’t know if I would ruin things.”
I knew what he meant to say – he didn’t know if he would get in shit for abandoning his family.
I swallowed my grudge, for now, and gave him a sharp nod. “I understand,” I said. “Well, I turned out okay.”
“And Michael?”
“That’s probably a conversation for another time,” I told him. I looked at Perry. “We should go.”
She nodded and gave my father – my father – a cautious smile. “It was nice meeting you.”
As she walked down the steps, he called after her. “Wait, Perry you said your name was?” She nodded and he looked at me. “When are you getting married? You said she was your fiancé?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “Sooner rather than later, I think.”