She nudges back, hard.
Gary is quiet through most of it, eating, listening. But he doesn’t look angry, only resigned. And when Carol brings out dessert and Winnie protests that she said she’d bring dessert and Carol waves her off, Gary catches my eye across the table and tips his head toward his daughter with an expression I recognize—exhausted, fond,what are you going to do.
It’s the look of someone who loves a person completely and finds them slightly overwhelming.
I know that look. I wear that look.
He sees me recognize it, and the corner of his mouth moves.
It’s not a smile, but it’s close enough.
We say goodbye on the front porch, Carol hugging us both again, Gary shaking my hand. Firm, same as before—but shorter this time. Less of a test.
“Drive safe,” he says.
“Yes, sir.”
He looks at me one more time. “She calls on Sundays,” he says. “Keep it that way.”
“Yes, sir,” I say again.
He nods. Goes inside.
Winnie loops her arm through mine as we walk to the car, leaning her head against my shoulder. “Well?”
“Your mom is wonderful.”
“And my dad?”
I think about the clock ticking, the kitchen laugh,she laughs more.
“He loves you,” I say. “That’s the whole thing. That’s all he is.”
She’s quiet for a second. “He shook your hand differently when we left. I noticed.”
“Did you?”
“What did you two talk about while I was helping with the salad?”
“Nothing important.”
“Banks.”
I open her car door. “Get in, Win.”
She looks at me for a moment, then gets in, and I round the car and climb inside, and she’s still looking at me.
We’re two blocks away when she loses it.
Full, helpless laughter, the kind she’d been swallowing since the bread basket, and now it’s just pouring out of her, and she’s covering her mouth with both hands like that’s going to help.
“Go ahead,” I say.
“I’m not—I can’t—” She dissolves again. “She brought upepidurals, Banks. The first time she met you.”
“I was there.”
“Medically speaking.”
