"Hi, Dad." Ellen entered her father's kitchen, which overlooked the golf course at Green Manor, which billed itself as a Community for Active Adults. Her father had moved here after her mother died, which was when he got Active, especially in the Adult Department.
"Hi, sweetheart," he said, standing at the counter, absorbed in slicing a tomato onto a plate. His wrinkled forehead knit over his brown eyes, set close together and hooded now, and his nose had a telltale bulb at the tip from the drinking he'd given up, years ago. Even at sixty-eight, her father had enough black in his thinning hair to make people wonder if he colored it, and Ellen was pretty sure he didn't.
"Dad, are you gonna die?" she asked, only half-joking.
"No, never." Her father turned with a broad smile that served him well on the back nine and the road, where he drove a thousand miles a week as a sales rep for an auto-parts company.
"Good." Ellen slid out of her coat and purse, dumped them on a kitchen chair, and kissed him on the cheek, catching a whiff of strong aftershave. None of her perfume lasted as long as her father's aftershave. She fleetingly considered picking up a bottle of Aramis.
"You look nice, honey. Dressed up."
"I'm trying not to get fired."
"Succeeding?" Her father sliced another pink-red tomato. Already on the table sat a plastic tub of Whole Foods tuna fish, a loaf of multigrain bread, and a pitcher of green tea, permanent fixtures in Don Gleeson's Antioxidant Heaven.
"So far." Ellen crossed to the counter, plucked a floppy tomato slice from the plate, and plopped it into her mouth. It tasted like nothing, a winter tomato.
"Don't let the bastards get you down. How's my grandson?"
"He has a cold."
"I miss him. When am I gonna see him?"
Ellen felt a guilty twinge. "Soon as I can. So, what's up with the doctor? You're scaring me."
"I waited lunch for you."
"I see that, thanks. You're avoiding the question."
"Sit down like a civilized person." Her father carried the tomato plate to the table and set it down, then eased into the chair with a theatrical groan. He always moaned for comic effect, though he kept in great shape, fit and trim in his pale yellow polo shirt, Dockers, and loafers.
"Dad, tell me." Ellen sat next to him, worried. Cancer was the worst sort of coward, sneaking up on people, and her mother had died from lymphoma, having lived only three months after her diagnosis.
"I'm not sick, not at all." He untwisted the tie on the plastic bag of bread, extracted two slices from the center of the loaf, and set them on his plate, open-faced.
"Then why did you go to the doctor?"
"Make yourself a sandwich, then we'll talk."
"Dad, please."
"Suit yourself, but I'm hungry." Her father popped the plastic lid of the tuna, then picked up the serving fork, speared himself a small mound, and patted it onto his bread with the tines of the fork, making crosshatches.
"You're stalling, Dad. It's tuna fish, not rocket science."
"Okay, here it is. I'm getting married."
"What?" Ellen was dumbfounded. "To who?" She had no idea. He was dating four women here. He was Romeo, with an enlarged prostate.
"Barbara Levin."
Ellen didn't know what to say. She didn't even know the woman. Her parents had been married forty-five years, and her mother had passed a little over two years ago. Somehow this meant her mother was really gone.
As if someone had put a period on the sentence that was her life.
"El? I'm not dying, I'm getting married."
"Why, is she pregnant?"
"Ha!" Her father laughed, then stabbed the tuna with the serving fork. "I'll tell her you said that."
Ellen hid her ambivalence. "This is kind of a surprise."
"A good one, right?"
"Well, yes. Sure." Ellen tried to get a grip, but a hard knot in her chest told her she wasn't doing such a great job. "I guess I just wasn't sure who the lucky lady was."
"Barbara's the one that matters." He picked up a tomato slice with the serving fork. "You gonna congratulate me?"
"Congratulations."
"I needed a cholesterol check. That's why I went to the doctor's."
"Oh. Thank God you're not sick."
"You got that right." Her father placed his tomato on top of the tuna, added a piece of bread, then lined up the two pieces, leaning over as if he were sizing up a putt. He pressed his sandwich closed, lowering his hand, then eyed her. "You don't look happy, El."
"I am." Ellen managed a smile. She loved her father, but he had spent her childhood on the road. The truth was, everybody had a goto parent, and with him away from home so much, Ellen's had become her mother.
"El, I'm entitled to be happy."
"I didn't say you weren't."
"You're acting it."
"Dad, please."
"I don't like to be alone and I'm not getting any younger."
Silence fell between them, and Ellen made no move to fill it. The ugliest of thoughts popped into her head, the wrong one had died. She felt ashamed of the very notion, and confused. She loved her father.
"I guess I knew you'd get upset. You and your mother were two of a kind. Peas in a pod."
Ellen couldn't speak for a moment. Her mother had been her best friend in the world. That said it all.
"Life goes on."
Ellen felt the knot again, then flipped her thinking. "So when's the wedding? I need to get a dress and all."
"Uh, it's in Italy."
"Italy? Why?"
"Barbara likes it there, near Positano." Her father cut his sandwich and took a bite, leaving Ellen to fill in the blanks.
"Am I going? Is Will?"
"Sorry, but no." Her father looked back at her over his sandwich. "It's not a big deal, not at our age. We're just doing it, no muss, no fuss. We're getting on a plane end of the week."
"Wow, that soon?"
"I told her you'd be fine with it. Her kid's fine with it."
"I understand." Ellen tried to shrug it off. "I'm officially fine with it."
"She has a daughter, too. Year older than you. Abigail."
"I thought she had a boy in the Peace Corps."
"That was Janet."
"Oh." Ellen smiled. It was kind of funny. "Well, good. I always wanted a sister. Can I have a pony, too?"
At that, he smiled, chewing.
"What does she do, my new sister?"
"Lawyer in D.C."
"I always wanted a lawyer, too." Ellen laughed, and so did he, setting down his sandwich.
"Ha! That's enough, wise guy."
"I think it's good, I really do." Ellen felt better saying it, and her chest knot loosened just a bit. "Be happy, Dad."
"I love you, kitten."
"I love you, too." Ellen managed a smile.
"You gonna eat or what?"
"No, I'm waiting for the wedding cake."
He rolled his eyes.
"So tell me what she looks like."
"Here, I'll show you." Her father leaned over, slid a brown wallet from his back pocket, and opened it up. He flipped past the second plastic envelope, which had an old photo of Will, and the third, he turned sideways and set down on the table. "That's Barbara."
Ellen eyed the woman, who was attractive, with her hair in a short, classy cut. "Mommy!"
"Gimme that." Her father smiled and took the wallet back.
"She looks nice. Is she nice?"
"Of course she's nice." He leaned over to put the wallet into his back pocket. "What do you think? She's a jerk, that's why I'm marrying her?"
"Are you going to move in with her, or is she moving in here?"
"I'm selling the house and moving in with her. She's got a corner unit with a deck."
"You gold digger, you."
He smiled again, then leaned back in his chair, regarding her for a moment. "You know, you gotta move on, kid."
Ellen felt the knot again. Time to change the subject. "I interviewed this woman whose husband kidnapped her children. Susan Sulaman, if you remember the story I did."
He shook his head, no, and Ellen let it go. Her mother would have remembered the story. She'd kept scrapbooks of Ellen's clippings, starting with the college newspaper and ending three weeks before she died.
"Anyway, Susan thinks there's an instinct that mothers have about their children."
"Your mother had that in spades." Her father beamed. "Look how good you turned out, all because of her."
"Hold on, let me show you something." Ellen got up, opened her purse, and extracted the photo of Timothy Braverman as a baby, then handed it to her father. "How cute is this baby?"
"Cute."
"Do you know who he is?"
"What am I, stupid? It's W."
Ellen stood over him as if suspended, not knowing whether to tell him. He and Sarah had both mistaken Timothy for W. She felt funny about it, and not good funny. It made her uncomfortable. She realized now why she was missing her mother so much. She could have told her mother about Timothy Braverman. Her mother would have known what to do.
"He's grown up a lot since then, hasn't he?" her father asked, holding up the photo with unmistakable pride.
"How so? I mean, what differences do you see?"
"The forehead." He circled the area with an index finger knotted from arthritis. "His forehead got a lot bigger, and his cheeks, they're full now." He handed her back the photo. "He just grew into his face."
"He sure did." Ellen lied more easily than she thought, for a bad liar. She folded the paper, put it back inside her purse, and sat down, but her father was looking reflective, pouring them a glass of tea.
"You were like that, too, just like that. When you were little, your face was so wide. I used to say you looked like a salad plate. Will's the same way. He gets it from you."
"Dad, he's adopted, remember?"
"Oh, right." Her father laughed. "You're such a good mother, I always think you're his real mother."
Ellen let that go, too. She usually felt like Will's real mother, until someone told her she wasn't. But she knew what he meant.
"You got that mother instinct from your mother. You're every inch her daughter. That he's adopted, it doesn't matter. That's why we keep forgetting. It's like proof."
"Maybe you're right." Ellen nodded, oddly grateful.
But then again, Don Gleeson could sell anybody anything.