Finding Isadora(58)

“Finish your wine and let’s go.” That exasperated snarl was familiar. I’d heard it the first day I phoned him.

“Fine,” I snarled back, taking comfort in anger. It was a preferable emotion to … whatever else I was feeling. After swallowing the last mouthful of wine, I carefully placed my glass on the box-table and stood up.

When I dared to look at him, he shook his head. “Why are we arguing?”

I shrugged, guessing he knew as well as I did, but neither of us was going to admit it. “It’s been a stressful day.”

A surprised laugh choked out of him. “Seems like they’re always stressful days when I see you, Isadora. Come on, let’s get you home.”

As we walked down the stairs he said, “About Richard…”

I gave a guilty start. “Yes?”

“I wouldn’t know how to start. Even if I did want to make things better between us.”

However confused I might be, I was sure of one thing: I cared about both these men and wanted to help them find their way to each other. “Start with small steps. Like … well, like he’s thinking of, with that boy in his neighborhood.”

“What boy?”

“Oh, didn’t he tell—” I broke off. “There’s a boy he’s made a connection with. The son of a single-parent mom. Richard thinks he’s a good kid, but heading for trouble. His mom’s always working and he doesn’t have a healthy male influence in his life. So Richard is going to be a sort of unofficial big brother, if Eric and his mother will let him.”

We reached the street and walked side by side to Gabriel’s car. “Looks like he’s on his way to being a good father,” he said. “Must have got that from Frank.”

Gabriel unlocked the passenger door and we both stared at the seat. Clean now, as if Valente had never ridden there. Valente, who we’d actually forgotten in the time we’d been discussing Richard. But then, to be fair, we’d forgotten about Richard when we’d been focused on Valente.

I glanced at Gabriel and he gave a rueful shake of his head, which seemed to express everything I’d been thinking. We’d shared a lot tonight, and I felt amazingly close to him. Too close.

With an effort, I refocused on what we’d been discussing. “Richard’s a good man,” I told his father as I got into the car.

Gabriel went around and climbed in the driver side, adjusting the seat for his long legs. “You’d know better than I. He doesn’t tell me much about himself.”

“He doesn’t think you approve of his career choice.”

He shrugged. “Corporate law. I’d rather he’d been a crusader.”

“He loves the work. He makes good money but that’s not the main reason he does it. It really fascinates him.”

He swallowed hard. “I didn’t know that.” After he pulled away from the curb, he said, “We don’t talk much. I never know what to say to him. Nor he to me.”

“Richard’s never come right out and said this, but I’d bet he doesn’t like disappointing you. Children, no matter how old they are, want to make their parents proud. He knows his career choice isn’t what you wanted, so he doesn’t tell you about his work.”

“And I don’t discuss mine because he resents it.”

“The two of you need to clear the air. He has a lot of bitterness and resentment, as you know. And you have guilt, and maybe some resentment too.”

He cocked his head in my direction. “Guilt, yeah. But how d’you come up with resentment?”

“If Diane hadn’t gotten pregnant with Richard, you wouldn’t have been tied down. You could have lived the way you wanted to.”

“That’s not Richard’s fault.”

“Of course not. But emotions aren’t logical.” I gulped, thinking how true that was when it came to my own. “All I’m saying is, I don’t think there’s much hope for you and Richard unless you expose the real issues between you. Maybe you can open the lines of communication, get to understand each other better.”

He made a noncommittal hmph sound.

“Deep down, I think he wants to know that you love him, Gabriel. That you think he’s a good person and accept him for who he is. Sure, he didn’t turn out like you, but you have yourself to blame for that. You never included him in your life. For him, your work was the competition and it always won.”

“Damn, Isadora, you cut to the bone, don’t you?”

I wanted to touch him, to lay my hand on his leg, his arm, his shoulder. Safer not to. “Sometimes you have to, if the wound has any hope of healing.”

“Seems to me that anything I’d do now with Richard would be too little, too late. Like with that damned dog, tonight.”

I studied his profile, noted the tension in his jaw. “Seems to me, trying counts for a lot.”

“Trying. We’re back to that.”

We drove in silence for a while. I was exhausted from stress and lack of sleep, but not sleepy. My body was alive with a nervous, buzzing energy. The same kind of feeling as when I worked so long I passed through tiredness into some altered state where I felt like I could go on forever. Gabriel made me thoroughly uncomfortable, yet I didn’t want the evening to end. “My parents told me about the meeting Saturday night.”