Dead Letters(4)

“Hi, Daddy. Glad you could make it.” I really do try not to inflect this with sarcasm, but it can’t be helped. He pretends not to notice. My father loathes conflict. Probably why he prefers his second family to his first.

“A, I’m so, so sorry. God, I can’t imagine…” He grabs my shoulders and peers intently at my face. I realize that I might cry, in spite of myself, and I gently shuck him off. His face is lined: the tragic patriarch, kingdom in ruins, daughter dead.

“I know, Dad. It’s…okay. Let’s head over the hill.” Old family joke. As in: “We’re all over the hill out in Hector.” Less funny now to be sure, and doubtless only to degrade with the years. Much like our family. “I’m sure Mom is…” I’m not quite sure how to finish the sentence. I’m sure Mom is a mess, I’m sure she’s already had at least one bottle of Pinot Grigio, given how late I am, I’m sure that there is going to be a scene of remarkable nastiness when Marlon turns up at the house. He makes a show of gallantly taking my suitcase from me and heads toward the parking lot. Effortlessly, he hoists the bag over his shoulder, an easy demonstration of masculinity.

“You didn’t bring much with you, A.”

“I packed in a hurry. Besides, I still have a bunch of stuff at the house. And I can always wear Zelda’s.”

He flinches visibly and refuses to meet my eyes. Nico balked, too, when I said this last night as I was flinging random clothes into my suitcase, while he perched in nervous concern on the edge of my bed, clearly worried for my sanity. I can see why it might be something of a faux pas to don my sister’s outlandish clothes and flit through the house looking just like her mere days after her death, an alarming corporeal poltergeist. But I always wear Zelda’s things. It would be a concession to her scheme if now I didn’t.

“Have you spoken to your mother?” Marlon asks.

“Briefly, on the phone last night. She was pretty disoriented, so I didn’t get much out of her.”

“Has she been doing…okay?”

“What, haven’t you called her?”

“I tried, Little A. She hung straight up on me.” He pauses. “Can’t say I blame her. Must be hell.”

“I don’t really know how she is, Dad. I don’t talk to her all that often. She’s been very…angry since I left for France, and Zelda said she has fewer and fewer good days.”

“Listen, kiddo, I’m…sorry that you have to deal with this. Her. It’s not fair. On top of everything…” Marlon seems unsure how to continue. This is as close as I will get to an apology from him. He’s very good at apologies. You realize only later that he has accepted responsibility for exactly nothing.

“Let’s not talk about it, Dad. I’d like to…just enjoy the sunshine.” We’ve reached the car, which he optimistically parked in the pickup and drop-off area. He has a ticket, which I’m sure he will not pay. This part of the world has yet to adopt the post-9/11 attitude typical to transit areas in the rest of the country, and airport security rather lackadaisically enforces its modest anti-terror protocol. In New York City, Marlon’s car would have been towed and he’d be in police custody by now. But here in Ithaca, just a ticket.

He has rented a flashy convertible, of course. My dad likes to travel in style, regardless of finances, seemliness, tact. He tends to think of any economic restriction as a dead-letter issue, a rule that does not apply to him.

“Nice ride,” I say. He grins mischievously as we load my bags and ourselves into the car and speed off. I hope he’s okay to drive. I haven’t driven in two years and don’t even have a driver’s license, but I might still be the better choice if he’s drunk. He seems reasonably coordinated, though, and once we’re on the other side of the city, we’ll coast along traffic-free dirt roads, kicking up dust and free to veer across the graded surface as much as we like. I relax as we speed down Route 13, Cayuga Lake on our right.

“So so so. Paris! How the hell is it, squirt?”

“About what you’d expect, Dad.” I shrug.

“C’mon, it’s one of the greatest cities in the world! That’s all you have to say about it?”

“It’s far away from Silenus. Even farther than California.”

He ignores the frosty tone in my voice. He is buoyant, but I can hear the strain in his throat as he tries to be cheerful for me. “Always so lighthearted, Little A,” he teases. “Levity, oy vey.” He whistles a tune as we drive through the city, the breeze ruffling his thick black hair, which isn’t curly like ours but, rather, wavy. When we learned that curly hair was a recessive gene, Zelda and I started speculating about our heritage. But there are too many other stamps of Marlon’s paternity on our genes, and we abandoned the possibility of filial mystery as an exercise in wishful thinking. The letters of our DNA signify our origins, even if they can’t inscribe our futures.

“What did you do while you were waiting for me?” I ask, though I know the answer. I’m wondering if he’ll lie.

“I stopped in to see some old friends, and we went out for a bite to eat.”

“Oh? Where did you go?”

“Uh, what’s that place downtown called? With the cheap margaritas?”

“Viva.”