The Forgotten Hours(70)
They left the balloons behind them. “Get ready,” John said when they reached the crest of the hill. “You guys ready?”
No time to fret over what came next. John floored it. Katie’s stomach turned over as they swooped down the hill. The speedometer topped eighty miles per hour, and the car shuddered with effort.
“Hot damn!” John Gregory shouted. “Fly like a bird!”
They stopped at a diner outside Walden, even though it was a cliché because every newly released prisoner headed straight there to get his hands on some home-style cooking. John ordered a beer as they sat down and then another as they perused the menu. They chatted about the upcoming election and the deaths of Pat Summitt, the basketball coach, and Muhammad Ali. He folded his glasses carefully and slipped them into the breast pocket of his plaid shirt. It was such a comfort to see him in this setting, a normal man doing normal things; Katie pushed aside the unnerving questions that scuttled into her thoughts from time to time. The past was the past, no? He was happy, and she was too. They all were—by God, they deserved it.
The food came quickly, brought by a waitress in pigtails with thin coral lips who must have been approaching sixty. Two specials (lasagna and meatloaf), a stack of pancakes, a side of curly paprika fries, and a piece of apple pie—far too much for the three of them. The men dug in, as though in competition with one another for which one could eat the most, lips glistening with juices and syrup. Katie tried to keep up, but she couldn’t eat much, shreds of mozzarella sticking to her palate like cardboard. A delirious mood set in, as though they’d rolled back time and were little again. David burped, holding his hand in front of his mouth like a teenager. Katie pulled out her cell phone to show her father the latest model, giving him a tutorial on how the apps worked. He pressed the keys with the thick pads of his fingers, clumsily, leaving behind a thin, oily residue.
“Hold on a minute,” John said, digging into his sack and pulling out an envelope. He studied the piece of paper and typed into Katie’s iMessage. “This right, hon?”
“Who’re you texting?” David asked, using his hand to wipe his mouth. Katie passed him a napkin.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” John laughed and handed the phone back to Katie. “Let me know when you get an answer.” He scooped out a big spoonful of pie and rolled his eyes in bliss as it went down. His face was slim, the skin sagging at the jawbones. There was stubble near his lips that hadn’t been shaved off completely. He stretched out his back and sighed. “We’ll have to get me one of those phones, okay, hunbun?”
The trip back to Manhattan was quiet, each of them wrapped up in the noisy embrace of the wind. A sense of calm had settled over Katie as they rose from the leatherette seats to begin the journey into the city, to her little place, her home. She turned to David to smile at him and was pleased that he smiled back. John drove all the way, one arm dangling over the door. At Katie’s apartment, he traced his fingers along the ridge of the old couch and along the top of the wooden coffee table as though eager to feel with his own fingers the varied texture of her life.
“Love this place,” he said. “So proud of what you’re doing.”
“Thanks, Dad, but you’re giving me way too much credit, really. My life’s not that exciting.”
“Yeah, but look at all this.”
David sat down and took off his baseball cap, his hair flattened underneath. His eyes were big as he followed his father’s frenetic movements around the apartment. “That all you’ve got, Dad?” he asked, nodding toward the one small sack.
“Yep. Except for the things your mother kept for me. She’s got some stuff in storage.”
“Want me to do some shopping with you? Those pants are from the last century.”
John smiled. “I think I might prefer to go shopping with this fashionista here,” he said. “Though you didn’t exactly dress up for the occasion, did you?”
Katie looked down at her clothes: worn cutoffs and a deep V-necked T-shirt. All the many times she’d visited him in prison, she’d been forced to wear slacks (no jeans) and cover herself up (no cleavage) in order to be allowed in, and today it had been liberating to grab whatever she wanted to wear. He was right—she should have made a bit of an effort. “We’ll have dinner out somewhere later,” she said. “Maybe I’ll put on a pretty dress, okay?”
John headed toward the kitchen area and started looking around. When he leaned over the counter and reached toward a cabinet above the fridge, his plaid shirt rose up and showed a stretch of white belly, almost concave, hip bones sharp above the loose band of his pants. He had always been somewhat stout, wearing his muscles from years of teenage football like an extra layer of padding. Now he was lean, thin, even. Right there on the counter, next to him, was her bag from the drugstore. She was still dithering, hoping against all hope she wouldn’t need to use it. But the truth was that physically she felt dreadful. The little she’d been able to eat at the diner earlier sat heavily in her stomach. She shoved aside thoughts of what that might mean.
Katie’s phone buzzed in her back pocket. It was a text from a number she didn’t recognize; the first message read, It’s John and I’ve got wheels, and the incoming one said, Come on over.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “don’t you keep any beer in this place?”