“Sure, if you can convince him to take a day off work—”
In the background, I heard Dad yell, “Convince who? Of what?”
And Carver replied, covering the receiver to shout back （not that it helped my eardrums）， “Nothing, old man! Go drink your Ensure! Hey—I was joking—oh, what’s that, Mom? I should come help you with something? Sure! Here’s your second favorite—”
“I am not second favorite,” I interjected.
“Okay, bye!”
I heard a scuffle on the other end of the phone as Carver very quickly handed it over to Dad. I could imagine the exchange—Carver tossing his cell phone to Dad as Dad tried to swat him in the arm and missed to catch the phone, and Carver slinking away into one of the other rooms after Mom, laughing the entire way.
Dad raised the phone to his ear, and his bold, boisterous voice boomed through. “Buttercup! How’s the Big Apple?”
My heart swelled at the sound of his voice, chorused with Carver laughing away in the background. I missed my family, more than I really cared to admit most days. “It’s good.”
“Eating enough? Staying hydrated?”
“I should be asking you that.” I exited the aisle and sat down on the bookstore step stool, satchel and books in my lap. “Old man.”
I could almost hear him roll his eyes. “I’m fine. These old bones haven’t quit on me yet. How’s my eldest doing? Found a nice catch in the city yet?”
I snorted. “You know my life is more than who I date, Dad. Love isn’t everything.”
“How did my beautiful eldest daughter become so bitter? It’s so tragic,” he lamented with a heavy sigh. “She was made from the loins of love!”
“Gross, Dad.”
“Why, when I met your mother, I was so smitten with her—”
“Dad.”
“—we didn’t leave the hotel room for three days. Three days!”
“Dad.”
“Her lips like fresh rose petals—”
“I get it, I get it! I just . . . I don’t think I’m ready for a new relationship. I don’t think I’ll ever be.”
“Maybe the universe will surprise you.”
For some reason, the angular face of my new editor came to mind. Yeah, right. I ran my thumb over the pages of one of the books in my lap, feeling them buzz softly. “How’s the family business?”
“Good as it’ll get,” Dad replied. “Remember Dr. Cho? Your orthodontist?”
“Alice said he passed.”
“Was a good funeral, though. Beautiful weather for April. The wind danced through the trees, I’m telling you. A great send-off,” he said, and then he added a little softer, “He thanked me afterwards.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat because anyone else hearing that would’ve thought he was crazy. Maybe he was a little crazy, but if he was, then I was, too. “Did he now?”
“It was nice. Got some ideas for my own funeral myself.”
“It’ll be a while,” I joked.
“I should hope! Maybe then you’ll come home.”
“I’d be the talk of the town.”
He laughed, but there was a little bitterness there. One that we both shared. It was why I left, after all. Why I didn’t stay in Mairmont. Why I went as far as I could, where no one knew my story.