By the time I got home I felt as deflated as a wineskin in the desert. I thought of going to the Wolf’s Lair, to drink some of the emptiness away. I quickly thought better of it. Apart from all the self-defeating irony of the idea, it would send a message to Kelly that might as well be: Why don’t we both kill ourselves right here right now? Which, come to think of it, wasn’t a bad question. But not one that I wanted to inflict on my only and most precious progeny.
But I had to do something.
So I called Dorita.
Do you want to come over? I asked.
Over? To your house?
The very one, I said.
There was a long pause.
I thought of turning it into a jest. But it wasn’t. And I wanted her to know that it wasn’t.
Do you really think that’s the right thing to do? she asked at last.
I didn’t care if it was right. I just needed something. Some connection to something other than my morbid thoughts. I needed it or I was going to…I didn’t know what. But it was going to be messy.
Yes, I said. It’s the right thing to do.
What about Kelly?
What about Kelly? I echoed.
Do you think she’ll be all right with that?
I don’t see why not.
Ricky, Ricky. Sometimes you can be so dense. The girl’s mother just died. You want to introduce a strange woman to the house? So soon?
You’re not a strange woman. Wait. I take that back. You’re a very strange woman. But she’s met you before. It won’t be that much of a shock.
I think you need to take this a little more seriously, Rick.
I really don’t think she’ll mind. She’s not like that.
You’d better do better than think. You’d better know for sure.
I’ll ask her, I said. Call you back in a few.
I hung up before she could protest.
Kelly! I called downstairs.
Yes, Dadster.
Come up here.
Okay, she said reluctantly.
It took a while, but eventually she ascended from her lair.
She looked depressed. Of course she was depressed. Stage whatever of the grieving process. Which seemed to involve never leaving the basement.
And she needed me less and less, it seemed. Another process. The growing-up one. Melissa’s death just seemed to have accelerated it a bit. Not a reversible process, I knew. Nor should it be. It was normal.
Which didn’t make it any less distressing.
Are you okay? I asked.
Sure, Dadster, she said, unconvincingly.
I’d like to invite my friend Dorita over.
Dorita? she asked with a cock of the head.
My friend from work. You met her in the office a couple of times. Tall. Loud.
Oh. Her. Yes.
Okay with you? I asked, as casually as I could manage.
Dadster, you gotta do what you gotta do.
She said it with enough of a smile to convince me that it really was okay. At least, enough for me to convince myself that it was.
I called Dorita back.
Come on over, I said.
You’re sure?
I’m sure.
Absolutely sure?
Just get over here.
Okay. Be there in a while.
I breathed an enormous sigh of relief.
In the hour and a half it took Dorita to arrive I managed to focus long enough to run to the store, pick up some stuff, prepare a meal. I grilled some prawns, soaked first in star fruit, ginger, cognac and some other things I’d never reveal to even the most assiduous interrogator. I cooked some fragrant jasmine rice to perfection. I called up Francis, my favorite local wine merchant. He found a bottle of Chateau Beaucaillou 1990 hiding in a back corner of the cellar. Send it over, I said. I set an elegant table, yet discreet. No candlelight. Nothing obvious. Just nice. Pretty. Ordered.
The bell rang. Kelly was closer to the door, and turned to it with a mischievous smile.
I cringed.
Kelly opened the door.
Hi, said Dorita. You must be the angel child I’ve heard so much about.
Daddy! reproached Kelly.
I’ve just been reading Philip Pullman’s latest, Dorita went on without a pause. I bet you’ll love it. I’ve brought it with me, she said, with a questioning lilt at the end of the phrase, a little ‘Is this okay, am I allowed?’
I love Philip Pullman, Kelly said.
Oh, I hope you haven’t read this yet. It just came out, Dorita said, pulling the book from her bag.
No, no, said Kelly. Thank you. Thank you.
I swear I saw a little blush. On both of them.
Another new side of Dorita.
This was going to take some getting used to.
We sat for dinner. Kelly and Dorita did most of the talking. There were some awkward silences. But not too many. I poured the Beaucaillou. I allowed Kelly half a glass. She was almost seventeen, after all. I’d started hanging at the local tavern at thirteen, I reminded myself.
Hey, Kelly? I said at one point.
Yo, Dadster.
Remember when you were eight or nine, and we arm-wrestled, and I told you how amazingly strong you were?
Sure, Dadster.
That’s what made you want to do wrestling, wasn’t it?
She looked me in the eye. She cocked her head. She smiled.
Dadster? she said.
Yes, angel child?
You’re seriously deluded.
Dorita left after dinner. Her departure was chaste. Free of innuendo. It felt good. I had deflected the demons til bedtime, at least.