Don't Fail Me Now(76)

It’s the size of a small closet, painted a buttery yellow, with one of those fans that turns on when you flip the light switch so it feels like you’re emptying your bladder under a low-flying helicopter. But I’m grateful for the white noise. It pulls double duty, drowning out both my tears and the voices outside.

I don’t know what to think about any of it. I think I’m still in shock that Buck’s gone, not just gone like I’m used to, but gone gone. I thought it would feel more freeing. Isn’t that what I told Cass back in the tent however many nights ago? That it would be a blessing? It doesn’t feel like a blessing; I don’t think any death can be a true blessing, even if the person was horrible. And now that he’s gone, I won’t ever know firsthand if he was so horrible.

So much of my hatred is rooted in what Buck wasn’t, not what he was. He was selfish and unreliable, a bad husband and a bad father and a bad boyfriend till his dying day, if I take Carly’s word for it. But I’ll never know any of his redeeming qualities, beyond being able to make a five-year-old girl laugh until her sides hurt, when he was in a good mood. I’m kidding myself if I try to pretend like I wasn’t hoping I’d get here to find him changed, and maybe we could have connected, and I could have walked away knowing something—anything—about my father besides the fact that he left us.

I tear off a long sheet of toilet paper and blow my nose. It’s weird, but I feel a lot sadder about not getting to see Buck than I do about not getting any money from him. The truth is, I stopped really caring about the supposed heirloom when Cass got sick. I guess that’s when I realized we had more important things to worry about than money. And maybe, deep down, I knew the whole time that it would end up being nothing, just the last in an endless string of disappointments.

I peel myself off the toilet and move to wash my hands, which is when I see it.

There, on the sink, wedged between the hot-water faucet and a container of antibacterial wipes, is a small cylindrical soap dispenser. And inside the clear plastic, amid a viscous, cloudy sea dotted with air bubbles, floats a miniature Christmas tree. The secret icon I’ve coveted all these years of some perfect, unattainable life is here, in what has got to be in the running for one of the saddest places on earth. The fact that it’s four months past New Year’s is almost beside the point.

I slowly depress the nozzle and let the soap pool in my open palm. Maybe no one’s life is what it looks like from the outside. Maybe Mom’s right, and if we all threw our problems in the air and saw everyone else’s, I’d grasp for mine (well, mine or Ivanka Trump’s). Whatever this sad bottle of soap means—if it is a sign from the universe and not just a sign that there was a recent local discount on out-of-season cleaning products—I need to stop wishing for an easier life, because no one’s going to hand it to me. I just have to suck it up and work with what I’ve got.

When I come back out, what I’ve got—all four of them—are waiting patiently, sitting in a row.

“Did you fall in?” Denny asks with a smirk.

“No,” I say. “But I think I just successfully removed my head from my ass.” I sit down across from Cass and rest my elbows on my knees. “I’m sorry this has been so hard,” I say. “And I’m sorry for making all of you come so far for nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” Cass says. She takes Leah’s hand.

“Nope, not nothing,” Leah says, taking Denny’s.

“I got a cool pen,” Denny says, holding it up. We all bust out laughing, and Denny joins in.

As we file out the door, I double back to the desk to thank Gina. “Sorry about all the histrionics,” I say. “It’s been a long week.”

“Believe me, I’ve seen worse.” She cocks her head and studies my face. “You do look like him,” she says. “But if you don’t mind my asking, where are the other two?”

“Cass and Leah?” I ask, confused. “They’re right over there.”

“No, Madison and Karen,” she says. “He had the names all in a strip down his left side. Used to tell me, ‘These are all my girls.’”

“Oh, right,” I say, like I knew all along I was in his skin, that we all were, side by side, a tribe of survivors. I back away from the desk and give her a shrug. “They couldn’t make it.”

I push through the door to find Tim leaning against the railing, the searing California sun turning him into a human hologram. Denny’s voice echoes in the stairwell—he’s singing “Michelle” now, too. Soon we can form a band.

“Are you okay?” Tim asks. “That was intense, to say the least.”

“I think so,” I say. Although I have no way of knowing, really; right now my feelings are bobbing over my head like untethered balloons. It’s all so surreal.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Just . . . keep being a good person,” I say, taking his hand and threading my fingers through his. “Open doors for old ladies. Lower your carbon footprint. Always tell the truth. That kind of thing.”

Tim nods solemnly. “Okay,” he says. “Then I should probably tell you, I’m falling in love with you.”

I close my eyes, not sure what to think. I’m still aching from the shock of losing Buck—or the idea of him, anyway—before I even had him, and now there’s a sudden swell of euphoria crashing up against the pain, hitting all the keys in my heart at the same time, like a cat running across a piano. I start to get anxious, bracing for the tidal wave, but then I open my eyes and look at Tim and realize that I don’t have to just wait for it to hit me this time. I have another option I’ve never considered. I can dive in.