“I’m fine.”
She bites her lip. “Are you sure you don’t—”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says with such finality that Greta has no choice but to scrape back the chair. For a second, she stands over him, and he does look old, but also somehow very young too, his pajamas a bit too big, his hair sticking up in the back. She remembers when she was a kid, the way he’d poke his head into the garage to tell her it was time for dinner. Sometimes she wouldn’t hear him over the sound of the guitar, and then she’d look up to find him looming there, solid and immovable, filling up all that space in the doorway.
She puts her jacket back on, then walks over to the door. “Lights on or off?” she asks, a hand on the switch, and he mumbles something she doesn’t hear. She flicks off the light and lingers there another few seconds, listening to the sound of his breathing. After a moment, she opens the door to the hallway, letting in a wedge of fluorescent light.
Just as she’s about to walk out, she hears him say, “Good night.”
“Good night,” she says, closing the door behind her.
Chapter Fourteen
In the morning, the sky is a brilliant blue, so sunlit and dazzling that people can talk of little else at the breakfast buffet.
“Perfect glacier weather,” says the cruise director over the loudspeaker.
“Not a single cloud,” marvels Todd, squinting at the windows.
“Such a shame your dad is missing this,” says Mary as she squirrels away a banana for him.
“Don’t forget your sunscreen,” says the old lady when she passes Greta at the coffee machine.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Greta calls back.
It’ll be hours before they reach Glacier Bay, but already there’s an air of anticipation on the ship. While they eat, Davis and Todd indulge their newfound fascination with the cannery industry, swapping stats like they’re talking about baseball. Eleanor takes the opportunity to nudge a flyer for the variety show in Greta’s direction.
“In case you change your mind,” she says with a wink. “Todd and I will be ballroom dancing. We’ve been taking lessons the last couple years.”
“Wow,” Greta says, wondering if the Fosters ever get tired of hanging out with so many white people. She turns to Mary with a little grin. “Are you guys ballroom dancing too?”
“My feet would never be the same,” Mary says, nodding at Davis across the table. “But we’ll do something, I’m sure.”
“We’d love to see you up there,” Eleanor says, looking at Greta hopefully. “And it might be a nice chance to—”
“No thanks.” Greta makes an effort to keep her voice light, though she feels a twinge of annoyance at Eleanor’s persistence. She pushes the flyer back across the table. “But I’ll be there to cheer you guys on.”
At the next table, a chorus of “Happy Birthday” breaks out. They look over to see a small, stooped Hispanic man surrounded by his extended family, all of them beaming as they watch him blow out the candle that’s sticking out of his pancakes. Tied to his chair, there’s a huge bunch of colorful helium balloons, and Mary turns to Greta with a smile.
“Your dad used to do that for your mom,” she says, and Greta is frowning, trying to remember balloons of any kind, when Mary adds, “At school.”
Years ago, Mary had taught third grade at the same elementary school where Helen worked as a nurse. Not long after, she went back for her master’s in education and became a principal in the next district. But for a brief time, the two of them worked in the same small building together, carpooling every morning and afternoon, sharing lunches and trading gossip.
“You didn’t know?” Mary says. “Every single birthday, he’d show up at the door to her office with all these balloons. The kids loved it.”
“I had no idea,” Greta says, though it’s not really a surprise. She remembers watching her parents dance at their fifteenth-anniversary party, the two of them pressed together under the fairy lights in the backyard. “Gross,” Asher had said, making a face as he watched them kiss. He was eleven then, and firmly against such displays of affection. But Greta couldn’t take her eyes off them, the way they looked at each other, like each thought they were the luckier one.
“He used to come have lunch with her every Friday too,” Mary says. “They’d meet in the cafeteria, and all the kids would make kissy faces and say, ‘Mrs. James has a boyfriend.’ And your dad, he’d just grin at them and say, ‘She sure does.’？”