Love, Like Father Like Son novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Lock

Chet offers June coffee and a card to leave the house unseen.

At breakfast, my mother announced the new seating plan and nobody argued.

Russell sat on her right, in the chair my father used for forty years of Sunday pancakes.

My father sat at the corner with the newspaper folded small, and he had washed the smoke off his hands.

"Good morning, June," Russell said. "I made your mother eat an egg. Say I'm a miracle worker."

"You're a miracle worker," I said.

I smiled at him.

It was the hardest thing I had done since pharmacy school.

My mother, Helen Engstrom, tapped her phone.

"Board meeting Monday at nine. Russell, you'll want to come see the yard. It's the same yard, only nicer."

"I'd love that, Helen," he said, and put his hand over hers.

My father turned a page of the paper.

He hadn't read a word of it.

I got up, kissed him on the head, and poured him a coffee the way he liked it.

"Dad, you're coming to dinner with me Thursday. Just us. That Thai place by the institute."

"Thursday," he said, and his shoulders came down a little. "I'd like that."

"Take your father out all you want," my mother said. "Just don't let him order for you again. He gets the mild."

"I like mild," my father said.

"Nobody likes mild, Davis."

Russell laughed, and then he stopped laughing a second after my mother did.

I filed that away.

Chet came down last.

He was dressed already, in a grey sweater, with an old steel watch on his left wrist and no phone in sight.

He took the chair across from mine and said good morning to the room, and then to me.

"I'm going to the hospital district for my father's errands," he said. "I could drop you at work, Ms. Engstrom. June."

"I drive myself."

"Your car is in the shop," my mother said. "I had them pick it up at six. It's an oil leak."

I stared at her.

"I never said it had an oil leak."

"It was dripping on the drive, June. I have eyes."

She did have eyes.

She also had the keys to my car, and I knew she hadn't called me first because she was looking at Russell while she said it.

"I'll go with Chet," I said.

My father's eyes came up over the paper.

I gave him a quick look that said I know what I'm doing, and I almost believed it.

Chet drove the grey car.

It was the same one I had seen on our street the afternoon before.

The inside was clean, with nothing in the cup holders, not a receipt on the floor.

We went three blocks without talking.

"You were parked down the road yesterday," I said. "For an hour before your father came."

"I wanted to see the house first."

"Why?"

"My father likes to know what he's walking into." He kept his eyes on the road. "I like to know it before him."

"And what's the verdict?"

"The house is a good house," he said. "The people in it are tired."

I didn't answer that, because I had nothing safe to say.

Then he said, "My father likes your family very much."

"Does he?"

"He likes people who are easy to love," he said. "He's good at it."

It was a strange thing to say about his own father.

I looked at his hands on the wheel and thought: he is the one who will handle her. He always does.

"What do you do, Chet?"

"I work for my father's firm."

"Doing what?"

"Whatever he needs done."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It's not so bad," he said. "He pays on time."

He turned into the hospital lot and stopped at the staff entrance.

I put my hand on the door and then took it off again.

"I get off at six," I said. "My car is gone. If someone offered me a ride home, I might say yes."

Something happened in his face, small and fast.

"I could do that," he said.

"And Chet? I'd rather have dinner on the way than eat with them."

"I know a place."

"Good."

He looked at me then, a long second, and I let him.

I thought: I am lying to a man who was sent to lie to me.

Then he reached into his jacket and held out a plain white card.

It had a phone number on it and nothing else.

"Take it," he said. "In case you ever need to leave that house and not have anyone ask why."

I took it, and our fingers touched, and neither of us moved first.

"Does your father know you gave me this?" I said.

"No."

"Are you going to tell him?"

He didn't answer.

I got out of the car and walked into the hospital, and at the door I looked back.

He was still sitting there with his hands on the wheel, and he hadn't started the engine.

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