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When he passes the plate, I notice the faded tattoos on his hands, the kind that weren’t done in any proper studio. They look like the sort a sailor would wear…or a prisoner.
The sky turns purple and faint stars emerge. The candles are failing, one poor, burned moth drowning in wax.
“You could put some fairy lights out here…” I glance up at the bare pergola. “That would be really pretty.”
The yard would need a fuck of a lot more work than that to be “pretty” by common standards, but I like the wildness of it. With a little grooming, cutting away the dead undergrowth, it could be primeval instead of dystopian.
When it’s time to clear the table, Sullivan takes a weighty stack of dishes into the kitchen and immediately fills the sink, rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt and getting to work scrubbing everything clean.
Merrick stays outside, clearing the crumbs off the tabletop and picking up the paper napkins that blew away in the breeze.
When I join Sullivan, he tries to shoo me away. “You don’t have to clean! You already did the cooking.”
“I can dry at least.”
He smiles at me sideways. “Well, I don’t want to fight.”
The slosh of suds is relaxing. Our hands touch as he passes me the rinsed plates.
I say, “Thank you. For the flowers.”
I expect Sullivan to ask if Angus saw them, but he only smiles. “You’re welcome.”
I tell him the good news: “Angus asked if we could come to dinner this weekend.”
“Oh yeah?” Sullivan rinses another plate and passes it to me. “That’s good.”
I assume he’s pleased, but since he was already in a mellow state, it’s hard to tell.
“Purple’s my favorite color,” I venture.
“I know.”
I glance up at him quickly. “How did you know that?”
“That was the color of your prom dress. And those sneakers you always used to wear. And that notebook you sketched in…”
He’s right.
If you would have asked me ten years ago, I would have said,Sullivan Rivas barely knows I exist.
Now I smile to myself, thinking maybe the flowers were a little bit for me after all.
16
SULLY
Long after I go to bed, I lie awake.
I can’t stop picturing my dad when he said he only got paid forty-eight bucks to jump off that roof, wheezing with laughter, his eyes crinkled up.
He never told me that part of the story before.
He’d always just said it was the luckiest day of his life.
“You have to believe in destiny. There was no other way a roughneck like me would ever meet an angel like your mom.”
I haven’t heard him laugh like that in years. Or seen him eat like that, either. Theo’s food is irresistible.
