Page 85 of Friend Me

I scuffed into the kitchen to send a package of popcorn for a turn in the microwave. While I waited, I opened a couple of beers. The headache I’d had yesterday morning from the vodka had disappeared. Dad had laughed at me when I’d dragged downstairs. When he’d asked, I couldn’t tell him the real reason why I’d drunk all the vodka. Or about my fight with Tyler. Instead, I’d told him I’d had a rough week at work. Which was true. He’d given me an indulgent smile and told me I worked too hard. I’d kissed his stubble-roughened cheek.

That morning, I’d cleaned the house from top to bottom while Dad had caulked around the doors and windows. Then he announced he was going outside to clean the gutters—though he’d called them rain-catchers. I distracted him by turning on the football game.

I dared to let a little optimism creep into my heart. He’d just had a bad day on Friday. Spending the week with a stranger had been difficult for him. I’d thrown my share of tantrums at preschool when he went back to work after my mother died. Time with me restored him. It restored both of us. Maybe Jackson would let me work remotely one day a week. Sylvia was wrong. Tyler, too. Dad was still himself, and we could make this work.

The microwave beeped, and I carried our bottles of beer and the bowl of popcorn into the living room. Dad cheered as the Raiders made a first down. I nudged his hand with the beer bottle, and he took it from me, his eyes still on the television. “Thanks, Maggie.”

I sighed but didn’t bother to correct him. He and my mother must have watched football together, and she’d brought him beers once upon a time. When they’d been young and in love, before she’d been taken away from him too soon.

Could I ever find that kind of love, the kind that lasted beyond even death? Dad had loved my mother from their first touch. I’d tried to manufacture something like that with Cooper. I could see it now. I’d dreamed that the perfect fairytale prince would sweep me up on his charger and carry me away, and Cooper Fallon fit that role to a T.

But even as I’d crushed on him, I knew, somewhere in the depths of my heart, that he was only a fantasy. Like my romance novels, he was something to keep my mind off Dad, my job that other people with no more qualifications than I had sneered at, my lack of real friends.

And when someone who actually cared about me came into my life, I was so deep in the comfortable groove of my crush that I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see him. I’d ignored all the signals Tyler had given me, not wanting to risk our friendship. But with the feelings between us, our friendship was already wobbling on its axis. Now it might be too late, and we’d careen apart into the emptiness of space.

“I miss you, Maggie.” Dad’s voice sounded younger than I’d heard it in a while, all his usual gravel gone.

My stomach tightened into a cold, hard ball. I put down my novel and looked over at him. He watched me, but his eyes clouded with memory, not seeingmebut someone else. My mother.

I reached across the table and gripped his hand. “Dad, it’s me. Marlee. Mama—Maggie—has been gone a long time. You know that.”

“Dead.” A tear glistened in the corner of his eye and then rolled down a groove on his cheek.

“That’s right, Dad. She died a long time ago.”

“Weeks ago.”

I sighed.“Yearsago, Dad. I’m all grown up now.”

He blinked the fog from his eyes. “Yes, you are, Sunshine. You look so much like your mother.”

I smiled at him. I’d always thought she was beautiful. “How about we remember her with her meatloaf recipe for dinner?” According to Dad, my mother hadn’t been much of a cook, but her meatloaf had been his favorite.

“That sounds good.”

I searched the freezer for ground meat, but my mother’s recipe called for a mix of pork and beef that we didn’t have. After being indoors all day yesterday and today, a shopping trip in the fresh air would do me good. I kissed Dad on the top of his white head. “I’m going to the store, then. I’ll be back in a few.”

He grunted, his attention already back on the game.

The sunshine and crisp fall air outside encouraged me to linger on my errands. I spent a few minutes talking to Mr. Oliveras; he’d seen Dad with Sylvia and asked about his health. I told him only that Dad had gotten more unsteady, which was true. I picked up a fruity Zinfandel to go with the meatloaf and a bottle of vodka to replace what I’d drunk. Plus some cheery yellow chrysanthemums for Dad to set in the bud vase next to Mama’s urn.

When I unlocked the front door, I was sorry I’d been gone so long. Even vodka wouldn’t fix this.

“Dad!” I shouted into the empty living room.

The room was a disaster. Beer from our tipped-over bottles hung in pendulous drops from the edge of the end table and plopped into a pool on the wood floor below. Popcorn was scattered across the room from the back of the sofa to the brown shag rug in front of it. The footrest of the empty recliner was up. The cushions had been pulled from the sofa and were thrown haphazardly in a pile nearby. My heart pounded. Where was he? Had he been attacked? Had we been burgled?

I found the remote on the coffee table and muted the television. “Dad!” I shouted again into the silence.

I strode into the kitchen. I’d whack the burglar with my heavy bottle of booze. And then Tase him while he was down. I scanned the room, which at first glance appeared to be empty. But then I heard a sniffle under the table.

Squatting down, I found him under the kitchen table, clutching his knees to his chest. “Dad, what are you doing under there?” I whispered in case the burglar was still in the house.

His eyes met mine, and they were clear but red-rimmed. “She’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?” A female thief?

“Maggie’s gone.”

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