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Jack rose and leaned the guitar against the chair. “A panic reaction. I remember the symptoms.”
“Yeah, well, when you had your panic reaction, you were—what?—twenty-four? I’m thirty-one.”
“I was twenty-three, but the bottom line’s the same. If you weren’t planning to marry Blue, you had to come up with a plan.”
“It’s not the same thing. April was crazy. Blue’s not. She’s one of the sanest people I know.” He meant to stop there but couldn’t. “She said I’ve turned her into another one of my dirty little secrets.”
“People who haven’t lived in the spotlight don’t understand.”
“That’s what I told her.” He rubbed his stomach where it was burning. “But those three minutes…Everything I was thinking. The plan I was coming up with…The lawyer, the child support—”
“All kinds of shit runs through your head at a time like that. Forget about it.”
“How am I supposed to do that? Like father, like son, right?”
Dean felt as though he’d ripped himself open, but Jack sneered. “Don’t bring yourself down to my level. I’ve seen you with Riley. If Blue had been pregnant, ther
e’s no way you’d have turned your back on your kid. You’d have been right there for him while he was growing up.”
Dean should have let it go, but his knees bent, and he found himself sitting on the step. “Why did you do it, Jack?”
“Why the hell do you think?” Jack bristled with derision. “I could candy coat it for you, but the bottom line is that I didn’t know how to deal with April, and I didn’t want to be bothered with you. I was a rock star, baby. An American icon. Too busy giving interviews and letting everybody kiss my ass. I’d have had to grow up to be a father, and where was the fun in that?”
Dean dropped his hands between his knees and picked at the paint flaking on the step. “But it changed, didn’t it?”
“Never.”
He came to his feet. “Don’t bullshit me. I remember those father-and-son get-togethers when I was fourteen, fifteen. You trying to figure out how to make up for all those lost years and me spitting in your eye.”
Jack grabbed the guitar. “Look, I’m working on a song here. Just because you finally decided you want to dig up old garbage doesn’t mean I have to grab a shovel, too.”
“Just tell me this. If you had to do it all over again…”
“I can’t do it over, so let it go.”
“But if you could…”
“If I had to do it again, I’d have taken you away from her!” he said fiercely. “How’s that? And once I had you, I’d have figured out how to be a father. Fortunately for you, that didn’t happen because, from where I stand, you turned out just fine on your own. Any man would be proud to have you for a son. Now, are you satisfied or do we have to fucking hug?”
The knots in Dean’s stomach finally eased. He could breathe again.
Jack dropped the guitar to his side. “You can’t make peace with me until you make peace with your mother. She deserves it.”
Dean stubbed the muddy toe of his sneaker against the stair tread. “It’s not that easy.”
“It’s easier than holding on to so much pain.”
Dean turned away and headed back to his truck.
He left his muddy sneakers and socks on the porch. As usual, no one had remembered to lock the front door. Inside, the house was cool and quiet. A basket in the foyer held his shoes. His caps hung on the coatrack. Next to the brass tray where he tossed his keys and spare change was a photograph of him when he’d been eight or nine. A bony, bare chest; knobby knees sticking out below his shorts; a football helmet engulfing his small head. April had taken it one summer when they’d lived in Venice Beach. His childhood photographs had popped up all over the house, pictures he didn’t even remember.
Last night, Riley had tried to drag him in to see Blue’s murals, but he’d wanted to see them for the first time with Blue, and he’d refused. Now, he turned away from the dining room without looking in and wandered into the living room. The deep-seated couches were a perfect fit for his long frame, and the television had been positioned so he could watch game film without light reflecting on the screen. The sheets of precisely cut glass protecting the wooden coffee table made drink coasters unnecessary. Drawers held whatever he might need: books, remote controls, nail clippers. Upstairs, none of the beds had footboards, and the bathroom counters were higher than normal. The showers were spacious, and extra-long towel racks held the oversize bath sheets he preferred. April had done it all.
The echoes of her drunken sobs whispered in his ears. “Don’t be mad at me, baby. It’ll get better. I promise. Tell me you love me, baby. If you tell me you love me, I promise I won’t drink anymore.”
The woman who’d tried to suffocate him with her twisted, erratic love could never have created this oasis that had become his home.
Today had been too much. He needed time to come to terms with all these muddled feelings, except he’d had years, and what good had it done him? Through the French doors, he saw April entering the screen porch from outside. He and Jack had built that porch, but she’d conceived of it: the high ceiling, the arched windows, the slate floor that was cool on even the hottest day.
