“Hi, Daddy.”
“Lillie,” said Ben, jerking his chin at me.
“Hey, Ben.”
He got off first, secured another line, then looked at me. This, I can assure you, was a rare event. His blue eyes slanted down at the outer corners, and his face was lined from twenty-five years at sea. He wore a T-shirt and the coveralls that all fishermen wore, and the effect was working-class hottie. Always had been. “Heard your husband left you,” he said.
“Thanks for bringing it up.” I tucked some hair behind my ear.
“He’s an idiot,” Ben said.
“Yes.”
And that was that.
“Wanna grab dinnah?” Dad asked. “We’re stahvin’。” Yes, I had a Cape accent, too, but it was tempered with Mom’s prep school / Vassar accent. Sometimes I played it up to annoy her.
“Sure,” I said. They’d talk about scallops and weather, and it would kill time before I had to go home. I’d fed Zeus early. “Hey, Dad, I got a dog. Think you can put in a dog door this weekend?”
“Sure thing, hon.”
Dad. He was the best. He hadn’t seen Brad since the weasel had moved in with Melissa, but I had no doubt that my father would do a great job defending my honor and making Brad pee himself in terror. Dad had a gift that way. Since he hardly ever spoke, his yelling was quite . . . impactful.
I helped the guys off-load the catch and tidy up the boat. Then we walked down the wharf to the intersection, where a cop directed traffic with some dance moves. We went into the Governor Bradford, a sticky, grubby place with pool tables and cheap beer and damn good food, one of the last townie strongholds.
“Do you have a reservation, sir?” asked a large, tattooed man at the door.
“Go fuck yourself,” my dad said fondly. “How you doin’， Danny?”
“Not bad, can’t complain. Ben. Three of you tonight?”
“You remember my daughter,” Dad said.
“Hey, pretty lady,” Danny said.
“Hi, Danny,” I said. It had been a while since I’d been here. Most of the time I ate in Provincetown with the Moms, and we usually went out to somewhere with six-page wine lists and tiny appetizers, or ate in. Always a tense affair, and always worse if Hannah was there, speaking French with Beatrice.
We ordered beers and sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping, watching the pool game in progress. Dad and Ben nodded hello to a few people.
“Having a bad day?” Dad asked finally.
“Every day is pretty bad this summer,” I said.
“Ben, we can make a guy disappear, can’t we?” Dad asked.
Ben, sitting across from me, grinned slightly, one side of his mouth moving, his eyes crinkling. “Sure can.”
“Don’t tempt me, guys,” I said. “Though yes, I’d be a lot better off as a widow.” It was definitely not the first time I’d had that thought, and it wouldn’t be the last. Dead Brad would at least have left me some money through life insurance. Dead Brad could have remained untainted.
“So what happened?” Ben asked, surprising me. The four sentences he’d said to me so far were more than he’d said to me in the past twenty-five years.
“I’m sure my father has told you.”
“Nope.”
I looked at my father. “Not my news to share,” he said with a shrug.
“He left me for another woman. Sixteen years younger. She’s filthy rich. And blond. And very limber, he tells me, because she is a practitioner of yoga.” I had nothing against yoga, but thinking of Melissa in twisty poses made me seethe. I just knew she was great at it. No falling out of poses for her.
“Wow,” Ben said. “Sorry.”
“Thanks. I thought we were happy, but we weren’t, apparently. According to Brad, I was a shitty wife for years.” I took a slug of my beer. “You left your wife, Ben. Tell me why men pull these stunts.”
Ben and my father exchanged a look.
“Dad, you’re my father. Don’t do all this silent male ‘is she crazy?’ communication.”
“I think I’ll move in with you,” Dad said. “You could use the company.”
I mock shuddered. “That’s why I got a dog, Dad. Besides, you and I lived together for ten years, just the two of us. That’s enough, don’t you think?”
“Happiest years of my life,” he said, winking. “Then she had to go to college, Ben, get married and ruin my life.”
“Kids. So ungrateful,” Ben said.