Cupid's Christmas (Serendipity #3)(13)
She doesn’t know that Donna Bobbs, her best friend for over fifteen years has moved to Ohio, and Josey Leigh is now an attorney with no time for Lindsay and, sadly enough, no interest. And Sinclair, the handsome lad who lived down the block—he’s now married and lives in Hohokus with his wife and three toddlers. Nothing stays the same, not for Lindsay, not for John, not for anybody.
After Lindsay counted up all the friends she was going to call and all the things she was planning to catch up on, she turned to thinking of her father. Poor Dad, she sighed, I have all these friends and he has nothing. I’ve not only been a bad friend, I’ve been a terrible daughter. I should have come home more often, and spent more time with Dad. He’s not getting any younger…
As she pulled onto the New Jersey Turnpike, Lindsay pictured her father rambling around the house all by himself, and she began to sense how lonely he must have been. When she tried to recall the last time she’d been home, it shocked her to realize it had been two years. Two years since she’d visited Medford, or stepped foot in the house she’d grown up in. She recalled the look of her father on that last visit. He’d pretended to be cheerful, even told a few jokes and funny stories, but his laugh wasn’t the same laugh she’d once known. A certain sadness had settled over him, a sadness that made his blue eyes appear grey and his mouth droop at the corners. He hadn’t asked her to move back home, but Lindsay knew it had to be what was in his heart. Why did I not see that, she wondered, why did I not see how much Dad needed me?
She drove for forty-five minutes, but while her eyes were focused on the road ahead, her mind was leafing through a photo album of memories. When Lindsay left the turnpike and turned onto Route 70, she felt the warmth of at long last being home. She grabbed her cell phone and pushed speed dial 2. Phillip had been number one, but weeks ago he’d been deleted. Now there were only five numbers programmed into her phone—the Book Barn and the pizza delivery place would be deleted before the day was over, then there would be just three, Amanda, Sara, and her father, he was number two.
He answered before the telephone could ring a second time, “Hi honey,” he said, “Are you on your way?”
“I’m almost there,” she answered. “Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”
“Can’t wait to see you,” he said. “Drive safely.”
He was waiting alongside the driveway when she pulled in.
Her father appeared more robust and cheerful than Lindsay remembered. She kissed him on the cheek and he pulled her into a bear hug. “It’s good to have you home,” he said, and his voice wrapped itself around her with a familiarity she’d almost forgotten.
John tugged Lindsay’s suitcase from the trunk of the car and carried it into the house. She followed behind saying, “You don’t have to do that Dad. I can handle it myself.”
“I know you can,” he answered, and continued up the stairs. He lifted the oversized suitcase onto the bed, and told Lindsay to join him in the kitchen when she was ready.
Lindsay unzipped the bag, removed her laptop, the few toiletries she’d tucked around the edges and three of her very best dresses. She left the remainder. She was going to be here for a long time, the clothes could wait until later when there’d be plenty of time for unpacking. For several minutes she stood looking at the room—the teddy bear sitting in the chair, the lace runner atop the dresser, the curtains at the window, pink curtains her mother had sewn. These things, Lindsay realized, were the reason she hadn’t come home. In New York she could fool herself into believing her mother was elsewhere, not gone forever, just simply elsewhere. Here Bethany’s absence was absolute. There was no elsewhere. Mom was gone, the kind of gone that slices into a person’s heart like a razor blade.
Standing there, where everything was just as it had always been, Lindsay felt the hole in her life growing bigger and bigger. The memories that had distanced themselves while she was in New York suddenly came alive and with them they brought a sense of shame. She had selfishly stayed away and left her father to face this alone. It was an ugly truth that now stood naked before her. Never again, she vowed, never again would she leave him alone.
This is exactly what I feared would happen. Lindsay is one of the few humans with what we call misappropriated affection. I’ve only had a handful of these cases, but my counterpart in California encountered one-hundred and thirty-six in just the last century. Of course his problems are rather unique—there was the movie director who…no…in the interest of decency I think it best I not tell that story.
Back to Lindsay, there is no cure for misappropriated affection. The only thing I can do is provide a distraction which then becomes the target of her love. Ergo—the dog. You might not have seen it but I know for certain, Lindsay fell in love with that dog the minute its picture flashed on her screen. This is another thing that baffles me when it comes to humans—even those without the capacity to love one another will love a dog. Of course compared to humans, dogs are easy. They’ll love any human I give them. The only problem a dog ever has is switching from one human to another.
By the time Lindsay came downstairs John had brewed a fresh pot of coffee. “This isn’t Starbucks, is it?” she asked. When John answered that it was Maxwell House, she filled a large mug and joined him at the table. They were not five minutes into the conversation before she asked, “Do you still miss Mom?”