Page 89 of The Night We Lost Him

“I’m trying to fix that,” he said.

She started walking away from him. “Perfect,” she said. “Maybe one of these days you’ll stop trying to fix the wrong things.”

Too Early and Too Late

I’m watching the sunset on the back porch when Cece calls.

I’m listening to the waves, a cup of tea in my hands. I have no reason to feel peaceful, and yet I’m so peaceful that I don’t hear the phone buzz at first. I’m taking in the soft light and the sound of those waves and thinking of Jack. And I’m wishing he was here with me, knowing how peaceful he’d find it too. I consider picking up the phone and calling him, but I feel like I don’t get to do that anymore. Not just because I miss him. Not until I also have something different to say.

When the phone buzzes a second time, though, I think for a moment that it is Jack. But it’s an 805 number that comes up on my phone, a number I don’t recognize, Cece’s voice coming at me, her tone clipped and anxious.

“I hope it’s alright that I’m calling,” she says. “Your uncle Joe told me that you were at Windbreak.”

“And how did my uncle Joe know that?”

She gets quiet, not answering. “I thought maybe we could have dinner tomorrow. Talk some things through.”

“Is he joining us as well?” I ask.

“I didn’t share with him that I was reaching out to you, actually,” Cece says. “I was hoping that just the two of us could talk…”

I hear a knock on the screen door. And look up to see Clark standing there.

“I’m going to head out,” he says.

“Hey, Cece, I’m going to call you right back, okay?” Then I click off and turn to Clark. “Thank you for coming out.”

“Of course. It’s nice to have someone staying here again.”

I give him a smile and stand up, walk over to where he is standing in the doorway. And I reach into my back pocket, Cece’s voice still in my head. “Before you go, can I show you something?”

“Sure.”

I hold out the group photograph with my father and with Uncle Joe in it. With Cece in it.

“I guess, and I understand if you want to remain discreet even now, but… did my father and this woman spend any time together here?”

He reaches for the photograph, reluctantly at first, clearing his throat. But then he looks down at it, scanning the group, landing first on my father.

“Wow, Liam looks so young here,” he says.

“I know.”

“And a lot like your brother.”

“I think so too.”

He holds the photograph closer to his face, takes it in. Then he shakes his head.

“But the woman… I can’t say I recognize her.”

“I can pull up a more recent photograph online.”

“No. There’s no need.” He hands me back the photograph. “I never really saw him here with anyone. You kids occasionally, but, more often than not, your father was alone here.”

I nod. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Clark touches the doorframe, running his fingers alongside it. Then he turns to leave, his back turned to me, his voice almost too low to hear.