A Father's Name(46)

She wondered if he thought of her as often as she thought of him. She was making herself crazy behaving like some lovesick teen. Not that she was a teen or anyone had said anything about love.

Now, lust, that was an entirely different matter. No one had said anything about that either, but she knew she had an acute case.

She stared at the delivery van that sat in the center of her paint room.

It was done. A stylized mural for a local bakery. Cakes, pies and cookies that looked almost real enough to eat. She’d painted a lot of things, but never food and she was pretty pleased with her results. She had a motorcycle that was due next week, but it was only a howling wolf on the tank and some pinstriping. Nothing taxing. She didn’t need to start it tonight.

She’d caught up on her paperwork. Well, not caught up exactly, but she wasn’t so far behind that she needed to keep at it into the wee hours. She could go home and veg in front of the television and watch shows that she enjoyed since Bart wouldn’t be in until late.

Owning the remote should be a treat, but instead she sighed. Bart coming in late was pretty standard this summer. He worked as a lifeguard at the Sunrise Foundation’s daycamp a few days a week, helped with Jace on his days off, and every evening he disappeared with friends. They drove into Erie and went to the peninsula, or the mall.

She got that. In fact, she encouraged that. She remembered that feeling of exhilaration when she graduated from high school. She would have loved running around with her friends that summer, but she’d had Bart. She’d grown up quick and while she didn’t regret anything to do with her son, she wanted him to have it easier, so she didn’t mind his having a great senior summer. She simply missed him.

Okay, so no Bart to distract her from thoughts of Tyler this evening.



She couldn’t even go out with Pops. He was out with Marilyn. Again.

Too bad Jace was with Tyler. She could have loaded him into the stroller and taken a walk.

Maybe she should get a dog.

Her thoughts skittered from one option to another, but no matter what kind of distraction she came up with for her evening, what she really wanted to do was see Tyler and Jace.

No. Tyler and Jace were out. She could call Eli. She discarded that idea as well. Eli had a family now. Zac, Ebony and Johnny.

With no clear plans, Tucker started shutting up the shop. She turned out the lights in her paint room, then headed into the main garage. A light was burning at Tyler’s work station.

She walked over to turn it out, too, and spotted a piece of garbage tucked behind a toolbox at the back of the work table. She’d expect to see debris on Lou’s bench, or even North’s or Joe’s, but Tyler was meticulous, about himself, and his tools. The balled up paper seemed incongruous. She picked it up to throw it in the trash, and realized it was an envelope.

A certified envelope.

Tucker laid it on the work bench and flattened it out.

It was an unopened, certified letter addressed to Tyler.



Maybe it was something important and he’d forgotten it.

The polite thing would be to take it over to him, right? And her father had always taught her to be polite.

After she’d dropped off Tyler’s letter, she could see if he’d mind her borrowing Jace for a walk. She used to love walking Bart through Whedon on dusky summer evenings. More often than not, he was sound asleep before she got back to the house.

Tyler would probably love having someone else put Jace to sleep.

Even though she knew that the envelope was a weak excuse, she felt better than she had all day. Showing up on Tyler’s porch because her house was too quiet was lame. Showing up because she wanted to kiss him again, lamer yet. But dropping off a letter that could very well have some kind of significance, well, that was simply a kind gesture and not lame in the least.

She made the drive to his house in record time.

As always, she was struck again by the incongruence of the house he lived in and the house she’d always imagined him living in. Although it was a bit rundown, it was as neat as everything else about him. Everything but the letter that she was taking to him.

Now that she was here, showing up on his doorstep uninvited, she felt awkward. Then she glanced at the letter in her hand and knocked on the door.

It took a little longer than she’d anticipated for him to open it. “Angelina?”

“Tucker,” she reminded him, though she didn’t know why she bothered. He might remember for a minute, but he’d forget and revert to referring to her as Angelina soon enough. It would bother her if it were someone else. But for some reason, she didn’t mind that Tyler called her by her given name, and only corrected him out of habit.