Apopka, which is stubby, coarse, and often yellow in the winter. This grass, by contrast, is almost blue.
“Some lawn,” he mumbles.
Cheryl returns, holding up a key and smiling. “Found it!” She kisses him on the cheek. “Come on, quit staring at the lawn and grab the suitcases. I have to disarm the alarm and I never remember the code. Oh, I’m so excited!”
“Oh”—the kiss still warm on his cheek—“I’ll come all right!”
Palm trees line the deck of Stevie’s house, barks painted white against insects. Cheryl is upstairs while he paces aimlessly; dusk can be the loneliest time of day. She’d grabbed him as soon as he dropped their bags in the guest room, needing him for the first time in months. “Do you want anything special?” he’d asked, unsure how to proceed after such a long absence. She hadn’t deigned to answer, leaving little for him to go on but a cryptic shrug. He didn’t press her further; instead, he improvised, and they had a magnificent time.
And now he finds himself drunk on it still, stumbling around Stevie’s backyard, letting the decor wash over him and already missing the warmth of her skin, the scent of heat in her hair. Her smooth back has maintained its perfect line through the years—a sculpture that never tires of posing. She even kissed him before dropping her head dreamily onto a fresh white pillowcase that still retained a vague latticework of creases from the linen closet. “They’ll be home soon,” she said. “And I still need to get dressed.” She suggested he get some air, her voice tinged by that familiar indifference. But she must have noticed it sneaking back in, because she kissed him again and softly added that she was feeling tired and might take a nap.
“Whatever you want,” he’d said, afraid of ruining the moment, and he repeats it now to himself as he circles the pool, which is better than theirs in every way: the still surface reflects the window to the guest room where Cheryl keeps her own counsel, the adjoining hot tub mocks him with its effortless warmth. There’s a gas barbecue, too. He twists the knobs and tests the starter before shutting off the valve and opening the hood. Drops of charred fat speckle the burners, but the grill sparkles silver, clean—of course. “Whatever you want.”
The labored whine of the garage door opening calls him inside.
It can mean only one thing. In a moment, his idle curiosity about how his son’s family lives evaporates. There’s no need to wonder, he thinks as he scrambles across the deck and into the house, because he’s about to find out.
Inside, he pauses at the landing long enough to call up to Cheryl. “They’re home,” he shouts, but he doesn’t stop to wait for her. Rushing on he stumbles over a leather ottoman. Catching himself, he calls again: “Cheryl, Gertie and Stevie are here!” As he says it, he can’t believe it. His voice shakes with anticipation and maybe even fear. Stevie is about to walk through the door. After three years, he’s about to walk through that door, and all will be forgiven.
He zips past the dining room and through the laundry room. One and a half inches of beveled, stained oak is all that separates him from absolution. Tonight will go well. Tomorrow will be a breeze. Smiling, arms outstretched, he prepares to embrace his son, the past forgotten, and to greet his granddaughter. He’s seconds away now; he can hear a key scratching at the deadbolt from the other side, a muffled curse accompanying it. Impatiently, he turns the lock himself before throwing open the door.
But instead of Stevie with Gertie in his arms, he finds Peter weighed down with groceries. Disappointment at not finding his son momentarily blinds him to Gertie’s presence, but there she is, too. Little Gertie. Hurdy-Gertie. The girl he recognizes only from photographs. Her legs splay across Peter’s midsection. Her straight black hair hangs down like streamers from his arm. She bears little resemblance to the girl in the photos, however. She’s so much bigger for one thing, and asleep, it’s hard to find the same animated features. The fact of her race remains absolutely clear, though. There’s no mistaking that she’s adopted, yet the closer Thaddeus looks the more he senses something vaguely familiar in her face, maybe somewhere around the hairline, and for a moment he entertains the notion that Stevie, Peter, and Cheryl have colluded in a lie about her adoption in hopes of keeping him away for these past three years, but it seems too outlandish even for Stevie, so he dismisses the thought and just like that it’s gone entirely, as if he’d never even thought it.
They must’ve exchanged greetings because Thaddeus feels words form in his mouth. From the end of a long velvet tunnel all Thaddeus hears is a deafening din until Peter asks a question that pulls him back into synch with the world around him. “Can you hold her?” Bogged down with grocery sacks and with Gertie, he can hardly move. Thaddeus manages a nod and holds out his hands. To think that last night he was just some old man beside a pool, and now, less than twenty-four hours later, he’s not only meeting his granddaughter but being given the opportunity to hold her. His eyes mist.
Peter slips her into his outstretched arms. “Say hi to your grandpa, baby.” And that’s as much ceremony as he puts into the exchange. Gertie continues to sleep uninterrupted.
“It’s okay. Don’t wake her,” Thaddeus whispers. “She’s probably had a big day.”
“Careful. She’s heavier than she looks.”
“She ain’t heavy. She’s my brother.”
Peter shoots him an odd look, which Thaddeus hardly notices.
“Just an old Hollies tune.”
How many nights beside the pool have been spent imagining this first meeting, rehearsing scores of scenarios? He had so many reservations, so many fears. What if he wasn’t cut out to be a grandpa? What if he dropped her? Would he even be able to love an adopted granddaughter? And now she slumbers in his arms, bigger than he could even imagine, a real person, but still tiny and vulnerable in every way. He could’ve saved himself the worry, he thinks. He’s a natural.
“It’s good to see you, Thaddeus.” Peter leads the way to the kitchen. “It’s been too long.”
“Three years.”
He stacks canned goods on the granite counter and slips a slab of something wrapped in pink butcher paper into the open refrigerator. For a while they don’t say anything else.
“Anyway, water under the bridge,” Thaddeus says at last. “You look different.”
Peter folds the empty grocery sacks and places them into a drawer. He looks down at himself and grins. “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment.”
In three years Peter’s look has changed completely. The wild dark dreads he wore in the past have been replaced by his natural shade of russet blond, trimmed close to the scalp and revealing a rather severe widow’s peak. In place of the grimy yellow glasses, which were always far too big for his small face, he’s substituted a stylish pair of wire frames. The clothes mark the biggest change. Peter used to wear lots of things with safety pins and ironed-on badges, a style far too youthful for him even five years ago when he and Stevie first started seeing each other. Now his patterned, understated button-up neatly tucks into a pair of pressed tan slacks. No more black boots either. Those he replaced with soft leather boat shoes.
“A compliment,” Thaddeus says. “You look good.”
Peter smiles. “I guess I grew up, huh? Who would’ve thought?”
Gertie squirms. Whimpering, she pushes against Thaddeus’s shoulder.
“Uh-oh, what’s
