Page 41 of The Night We Lost Him

I walk the property. It’s eerily silent, even considering it’s the middle of the night. No other person is anywhere in sight. I pass by the landscape gardens and citrus groves, circle a lily pond, lanterns in gnarled oaks lighting my way. I end up back in the reception area. The only cottage lit up.

The overnight receptionist is behind the front desk in a button-down shirt and trousers. He nods in my direction as I walk through the living area. The room low-lit and quiet. A fire going strong in the stone fireplace.

There are framed photographs covering the wall above that fireplace. Framed articles about the property. Each of my father’s properties has this kind of area designated to the history of the property, leaning into a mythical story behind what makes the property specific, what makes it singular.

I start to read through the articles here, focusing in on a cover story in the Santa Barbara News-Press, announcing the sale of The Ranch to my father. He had bought the land from citrus farmers who harvested an average of 500,000 lemons and oranges a year. He was turning it into a boutique hotel. He was promising to preserve almost all the acreage.

I move farther down the wall and spot the one photograph of me at six years old, my father carrying me on his shoulders, standing not too far from this exact spot. The first time I was ever here, the time shortly before my parents split up. My mother was not in the photograph. Maybe she already knew. Maybe they both already knew what was coming.

“You look the same,” he says.

I turn to see the night receptionist coming out from behind his desk and walking toward me.

“Sorry?” I say.

He motions to the wall, to that photograph of me. “You look the same as you did when you were little,” he says.

“You think?”

I turn and look at the photograph. Then I look back at him as he comes over to stand beside me, his hands in his pockets.

“Your father would talk to me about you. You and your brothers. He’d come over after he had dinner in the cellar and we’d play cards.”

“What kind?”

“Gin rummy. Poker occasionally, but only for pretzels.”

I smile at him. How strange—and how nice—to know this now. To imagine my father sitting here in the middle of the night.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Carmen.”

“You’ve worked here for a long time?”

“A long time, yeah.” He motions toward the photograph. “He was a pretty good guy to work for, your father.”

“I don’t hear that often.”

“Sure, he was tough. I’ve seen a lot of guys get sacked over the years for not taking their jobs seriously,” he says. “But he let you know that up front. And he didn’t think he was above it, either. I remember one night when we were playing cards, the toilet in here overflowed. And the plumber was taking a long time to get here, too long for your father, and so he just went in there and snaked the damn thing himself. Came out covered in toilet water, smelling a little like shit. Had to borrow a shirt so we could finish the game.”

I let out a small laugh. “That’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, well. He came up that way, right? And from where I stand, he was real generous. And decent. You had to work hard to earn his respect, but once you earned it, he would do anything for you.”

“How do you mean?”

“My wife had a tough pregnancy a few years back. He gave me nine months off, paid. So I could be home with the babies.”

He pulls out his phone, starts scrolling through his photographs. “They just turned three,” he says. “But they were so small at first, three and a half pounds. And he just kept promising me it was all going to turn out okay. He would show me photographs of your brothers. How small they were. What they turned into.”

Then he holds out his own phone, anxious to show me his twins—his girls—and how big and strong they are now.

I take his phone and look at the photographs of his girls, who are so cute—beyond so cute—and so happy. I start flipping through to see other photographs of them. Other pieces of his history.

I think of my father standing here, showing him my brothers. His own history. We all want to show that, don’t we? Like proof. We helped them survive. They will survive.

Which is when I realize.

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