He was still trying to figure Andrea out as he wobbled up the camper steps. In her forties, he guessed. Light brown skin; shocking green eyes; black kinky hair; the lithe, long body of an athlete or dancer; intelligent; outspoken; a rich, resonant voice that excited the chemistry of your brain… A guy could fall for her!
“Don’t be stupid,” he scolded. “You’re married.”
He’d left his phone charging on the galley counter, next to the sink. He prodded it to see if any emails or messages had come in. Nothing. But the FaceTime icon had a bright red dot pasted onto it, so he poked it. ‘Robbie Hope’ had tried to connect just after eight o’clock. Robbie had never FaceTimed before. No need to guess what he wants to talk about, Buddy figured Where does this conversation begin? Where does it end?
He unplugged the phone and eased himself onto the dining nook’s bench, staring into its screen, as if there might have been some kind of helpful app squirrelled away in its circuitry. Too soon, he thought. I’m not ready for this.
Some things you’re never ready for, he figured. All your preparations add up to a pack of lies, or at best a massaged version of the truth. He tapped Robbie’s encircled image, waited while the electrons in his phone reached out, streaming through space and time, making their connections.
“Hi Dad,” Robbie appeared.
“Hi, Son. I guess you know what’s going on?”
“No! I don’t! When I went to check up on Mom yesterday, she was packing all your stuff into garbage bags and chucking them out onto the back deck. Said she’s going to call a locksmith and get all the locks re-keyed. That you left us, and our house isn’t your home anymore.”
Robbie’s words wormed through his innards, poisonous roots binding his organs, sapping the lifeblood out of him. This isn’t what I wanted! he protested, rigid with anger and fear. “I haven’t left,” he objected, trying to find a language that might help Robbie understand. “I needed to get away for a while, Rob. Sort things out. That’s all.”
“Mum doesn’t see it like that,” Robbie warned. “She’s crazy-mad. Won’t let me say anything good about you or question her about what happened. She’s flown right off the handle.”
Buddy sighed. Yearned to hug his son in an act of contrition and mourning instead of staring at the hologram technology allowed… a blurry phantom that felt like memory. “I left her a letter, Robbie. Said I needed some time to think, is all. Get my shit together… I’m not leaving you guys. Ever!”
Silence. Neither of them knew what came next. “Why didn’t Gloria and I see this coming, Dad? Have things been that bad between you and Mum?”
“How is Gloria?”
“She’s mad, trying not to take sides.”
“You and her are the most important people in our lives. You know that, right? Things have been difficult for Mum and me, and we’ve got to deal with it, but we both love the two of you. There’s never been any doubt about that.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“I’ll call your mother today and see if we can work out some kind of truce. No matter what, you’ve got to understand I love you, and Gloria… and her… Even if we have to rebuild, that love’s still there.”
Robbie looked back at him, out of the screen, like a child in a lifeboat being rowed away from the Titanic. And the band played on, because there was nothing left to do or say. And the lights in the chandeliers glittered, even as they were doused in the deep.
The camper lurched, tilting nose-first into the gravel of the Sandersons’ drive, which parted to receive him. Only later would Buddy realize that dizziness had become a fact of life, the sensation of lurching from one event to the next.
Next: Shit Happens