The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry(26)

Ismay, who mans the table with him, hands him a Kleenex.

“Cold,” he says.

“Sure it is,” Ismay says.

At the end of the night, Madame Olenska says, “Thank you, Mr. Fikry. You are good man.”

“Maybe I’ve got a good kid.” He still needs to claim his mouse from the dressing room.

“Yes,” she says. “But this is not enough. You must find yourself good woman.”

“I like my life,” A.J. says.

“You think child is enough, but child grows old. You think work is enough, but work is not warm body.” He suspects Madame Olenska has already tossed back a few Stolis.

“Happy holidays, Madame Olenska.”

Walking home with Maya, he is contemplating the teacher’s words. He has been alone for nearly six years. Grief is hard to bear, but being alone he has never much minded. Besides, he doesn’t want any old warm body. He wants Amelia Loman with her big heart and bad clothes. Someone like her, at least.

Snow is beginning to fall, and the flakes catch in Maya’s whiskers. He wants to take a picture, but he doesn’t want to do the thing where you stop to take a picture. “Whiskers become you,” A.J. tells her.

The compliment to her whiskers sets off a stream of observations about the recital, but A.J. is distracted. “Maya,” he says, “do you know how old I am?”

“Yes,” she says. “Twenty-two.”

“I’m quite a bit older than that.”

“Eighty-nine?”

“I’m . . .” He holds up both his palms four times, and then three fingers.

“Forty-three?”

“Good job. I’m forty-three, and in these years I’ve learned that it’s better to have loved and lost and blah blah blah and that it’s better to be alone than be with someone you don’t really fancy. Do you agree?”

She nods solemnly, and her mouse ears almost fall off.

“Sometimes, though, I get tired of learning lessons.” He looks down at his daughter’s puzzled face. “Are your feet getting wet?”

She nods, and he squats on the ground so that she can get on his back. “Put your arms around my neck.” Once she is mounted, he stands, groaning a little. “You’re bigger than you used to be.”

She grabs his earlobe. “What’s that?” she asks.

“I used to have an earring,” he says.

“Why?” she asks. “Were you a pirate?”

“I was young,” he says.

“My age?”

“Older than that. There was a girl.”

“A wench?”

“A woman. She liked this band called The Cure, and she thought it would be cool if she pierced my ear.”

Maya thinks about this. “Did you have a parrot?”

“I didn’t. I had a girlfriend.”

“Could the parrot talk?”

“No, because there wasn’t a parrot.”

She tries to trick him. “What was the parrot’s name?”

“There wasn’t a parrot.”

“But if there was one, what would his name have been?”

“How do you know it’s a he?” he asks.

“Oh!” She puts her hand to her mouth, and she begins to tip backward.

“Hold on to my neck or you’ll fall off. Maybe she was called Amy?”

“Amy the parrot. I knew it. Did you have a ship?” Maya asks.

“Yes. It had books on it, and it really was more of a research vessel. We studied a lot.”

“You’re ruining this story.”

“It’s a fact, Maya. There are murdering kinds of pirates and researching kinds of pirates, and your daddy was the latter.”

THE ISLAND IS never a popular destination during the wintertime, but that year Alice is exceptionally inclement. The roads are an ice rink, and ferry service is canceled for days at a time. Even Daniel Parish is forced to stay at home. He writes a little, avoids his wife, and spends the rest of his time with A.J. and Maya.

As do most women, Maya likes Daniel. When he comes to the store, he does not talk to her like she is a simpleton just because she is a child. Even at six, she is sensitive to people who are condescending. Daniel always asks her what she is reading and what she thinks. Furthermore, he has bushy blond eyebrows and a voice that makes her think of damask.

One afternoon a week or so after New Year’s, Daniel and Maya are reading on the floor of the bookstore when she turns to him and says, “Uncle Daniel, I have a question. Don’t you ever go to work?”

“I’m working right now, Maya,” Daniel says.

She takes off her glasses and wipes them on her shirt. “You don’t look like you’re working. You look like you’re reading. Don’t you have a place you go where you have a job?” She elaborates, “Lambiase is a police officer. Daddy is a bookseller. What do you do?”

Daniel picks Maya up and carries her to the local author section of Island Books. Out of courtesy to his brother-in-law, A.J. stocks Daniel’s entire body of works, though the only book that ever sells is that first one, The Children in the Apple Tree. Daniel points to his name on the spine. “That’s me,” he says. “That’s my job.”

Maya’s eyes grow wide. “Daniel Parish. You write books,” she says. “You’re a”—she says the word with reverence—“writer. What is this about?”