Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [34]
“Now, Mira, I thought I’d bring over the ambrosia. Oh, and I went ahead and baked up a tin of those nice crescent rolls. I thought that your friend—Richard, is it?—might enjoy some for breakfast. And I know how busy you are this morning.” She smiles in the direction of the sleeping Richard, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I hope I haven’t woken him.” Of course, what she has really come to do is spy on Richard, who I suspect is awake, because his snoring has suddenly stopped.
My suspicions are confirmed when Richard gets up mere seconds after Hope’s departure. “Did I hear someone say there are warm crescent rolls?” he says, rolling over and clicking on the TV. I pour us steaming bowls of caffè latte, load up a tray with the rolls and some biscotti, and bring it into the living room, where Richard is watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from the sofa bed. Now that he’s awake, I give Chloe her busy box to play with. I climb across Richard and sit on the foot of the bed where I can keep an eye on Chloe who, intermittently, is distracted by the large floats on TV, as is Richard. Nonetheless, I decide the time is right for me to begin my interrogation. Besides, I might even get more information from Richard this way.
“So what is up with my dad?’
“What do you mean?”
“Is he okay? He seems just, I don’t know, a little distant and distracted lately, and I was wondering if everything is all right.”
Richard doesn’t say anything. He and Chloe are mesmerized by a giant SpongeBob SquarePants balloon floating down Thirty-fourth Street.
“I’m worried. Do you think he is all right physically? Do you think he could be sick?”
“What makes you think he’s sick?”
“I don’t know, nothing really,” I tell him, remembering my father’s deliberate speech and his forgetfulness. “It’s just that I get the feeling that he is keeping something from me, that’s all. And it would be just like him to not want to share bad news like that.”
Again, nothing from Richard. He helps himself to another roll, his third.
“Has he said anything to you? Because if he has, I think you should tell me. As his only child, I think I have a right to know. He is not a young man anymore, and any time now I might have to start, you know, making arrangements for his care.”
“No, he hasn’t said anything, and he doesn’t look sick. Not that I have seen too much of him lately, but when I have, he seems the picture of health.”
I slump against the pillows, unsatisfied. I suspect he’s lying.
Rather improbably, Richard and my father had become friends over the years. Even though I’d done my best to keep him a secret, a few weeks after we met, Richard, tired of my begging to be left off at the top of my street when he dropped me off after the Al-Anon meeting, insisted on taking me home and meeting my parents. (He’s a bit of a prude and wanted to dispel any notion of impropriety should I be seen getting out of his sports car late at night by one of our well-meaning but meddlesome neighbors.) And there was a time when my mother had tried to quit drinking in earnest and Richard had actually moved in with us briefly, acting in equal parts as an older brother, AA sponsor, and friend. Richard and my dad still occasionally meet for dinner, or take in a movie, or get together on a Sunday afternoon to watch the Steelers.
Richard takes a long draft of his coffee and helps himself to another biscotti. He knows me well enough to know that I haven’t given up; I’m merely considering my next line of questioning.
Richard puts his coffee mug down on the breakfast tray, folds his hands across his stomach, and gives me his full attention. “Well, have you asked him if anything is wrong?”
“Of course I have.”
“Well?”
“He said everything is fine, he’s just been busy.”
He pauses a minute, then continues, “Well, then, I think he’s just been busy.” There is something about the way he says busy. I look up sharply, and Richard quickly looks away.
“Really, Mira, if your father chooses