Good Riddance(31)

I’d never say it on the record, but now that I knew about my illegitimate life, I realized what a good actress my mother had been.



Another few days passed without hearing from my dad. Was this my life now, worrying about our relationship, treading lightly or not at all? I reached him with the evening news blaring in the background. “Let me turn the sound down,” he said. “There. How’s the chocolate business?” he asked.

“So far it’s just homework. Still learning. But you sound good. Everything under control?”

“If you mean up north, it’s over. Julian sent a nice young woman, an associate in his firm, to represent me in court—”

“Court? You had your hearing?”

“I told you they wanted me back in a week. The judge dismissed the case. Armstrong dropped the charges.”

Had we just entered a more relaxed zone where I could work my way toward Samantha the fictional daughter? I decided I could, figuring better me than Geneva catching him off guard with a camera in his face. “By the way, if you get a call from Geneva and she mentions a third daughter named Samantha, just nod and change the subject.”

“Whose third daughter?”

“Yours but imaginary. Geneva was snooping around after too much Googling and picked up on the fact that you warned Armstrong to keep away from your daughter. So I made one up to throw her off the scent.”

“You can be a little loose with the truth, Daff. Was that necessary? That project of hers will never see the light of day.”

Considering the powder keg that was the dual topic of Armstrong and Geneva, I didn’t expect his follow-up to be a cheerful “We have ourselves a funny coincidence.”

“Which part?”

“The name.”

For a worried few seconds, I thought, Please don’t tell me I knew on some primordial level that there really is a daughter named Samantha. “In what way the name?”

“Okay, a piece of news: I met a nice lady.”

“Named Samantha?”

“No! But her pooch is named Sammi, a female; Sammi with an i.”

“One of the dogs you walk?”

“We call them clients. Yes, three afternoons a week, increasing to five starting Monday.”

Was it my job as his romantic consultant to point out that a business relationship doesn’t necessarily go off-leash? “How nice,” I said.

“She’s invited me in for coffee when I bring Sammi back. More than once.”

“And?”

“Unless I have another client with me, I stay. And lately it’s been a glass of wine or sherry.”

“This is good. Not married, I assume?”

“Never married!”

“What’s her name?”

“Kathi with an i.”

“How old?”

“Fifty.”

“She volunteered that?”

“She served leftover birthday cake last time. Hers. ‘The big five-o,’ she told me.”

“Fifty’s young.”

“If you mean too young for me . . . she knows my age.”

“Does she know you were recently arrested?”

“She does. I told her the truth after she told me she was worried that Sammi got a substitute walker on Wednesday.”

“And that didn’t shock her?”

“No! Just the opposite. I told her that my late wife had had an affair and that the man had met my daughter and was making overtures so I asked him to keep his distance. I think she found it a little heroic, especially the arrest part, like it was an act of civil disobedience.”

Just like that—a major secret of both our lives, the one he’d bottled up for thirty-two-plus years—now in the possession of a stranger. I asked her last name and he told me, “Krauss. Kathi Krauss.”

“Do you think she added the extra days of walking Sammi so she can see more of you?”

I heard a chuckle. “The schedulers are already teasing me. They’re all young kids at New Leash. They wouldn’t know the meaning of a no-fraternization rule.”

“And you’re getting a sense that she’s flirting. Or at least interested?”

“I wouldn’t call it flirting. She’s a piano teacher.”

A teacher like my mother, the adulterer. How generous and sweet he was—two qualities I might’ve possessed if not for the missing genetics of it. “Does she know you haven’t always been a dog walker?” I asked.

“She does. I worked that in pretty quickly.”

“And she’s not just looking for a new pupil?”

“Give me some credit, Daff.”

By now, I’d made my way to my laptop and was Googling “Kathi Krauss piano teacher NYC.” It took me to the website of Kathleen Krauss, MA, where I learned that her specialty was giving piano lessons to adults who “fled the keyboard” as children and were now regretful.

I asked him if Paula from Thanksgiving was officially in the rearview mirror.

“I’ll find a nice way to tell her I want to be just friends. Manuel says she’ll be cool with that.”

“I should consult Manuel myself.”

“About the guy across the hall?”

Had I told him about Jeremy?