“I loved your mother more than anything else on this earth. Every day with her was the best day of my life, even if we were screaming at each other at the top of our lungs.”
Sam remembered the screaming if not the adulation. “I’ve never understood what she saw in you.”
“A man who did not want to wear her underwear.”
Sam laughed, then felt bad for laughing.
“Lenny introduced us. Did you know that?” Rusty did not wait for a response. “He dragged me up north to meet this gal he was kind of dating, and the minute I saw her, I thought a God damn boulder had fallen out of the sky and conked me on the head. I simply could not take my eyes off of her. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Legs that went on for miles. Lovely curve of her hip.” He grinned at Sam. “And of course, lest you think your daddy was a total poonhound, there was the enigma of her mind. My Lord, she knew things. Just blew me away with the breadth and depth of her knowledge. I had never in my life met a woman like that. She was like a cat.” He pointed his finger at Sam. “Anyone ever say that about you?”
“I can’t say that they have.”
“Dogs are stupid,” Rusty said. “This is a known fact. But a cat—you have to earn a cat’s respect every single day of your life. You lose it and—” He snapped his fingers. “That’s what your mama was to me. She was my cat. She kept my compass pointing true north.”
“Your metaphors are mixing.”
“Cats sailed with the Vikings.”
“To kill rats. Not to navigate the ship,” Sam said. “Mama hated what you did.”
“She hated the inherent risks in what I did. She hated the hours, without a doubt. But she understood that I needed to do it, and she always respected people who made themselves useful.”
Sam heard Gamma’s own voice in his words.
Rusty said, “City of Portland v. Henry Alameda.”
Sam felt a jolt of shock.
Her first case.
Rusty said, “I sat in the back with my teeth shining so bright I could’ve shown a cat how to sail a ship away from the rocky shore.”
“But, Dad—”
“You were a natural, my girl. Just a damn fine prosecutor. Totally in charge of the courtroom. Never been more proud.”
“Why didn’t you—”
“I just wanted to check on you, see if you’d found your place.” Rusty shook another cigarette out of his pack. “Clinton Cable Corp. v. Stanley Mercantile Limited.” He winked at her, as if it was nothing to recite the first patent complaint she had argued completely on her own. “That’s your place, Samantha. You have found your way to be useful in this world, and you are undoubtedly the best in the game.” He tossed the cigarette into his mouth. “I cannot say that I would’ve chosen that particular direction to point your remarkable brain, but you are truly in your element when you are discussing the tensile strength of a reinforced cable.” He leaned over. He pointed his finger at her chest. “Gamma would have been proud.”
Sam felt unwelcome tears in her eyes. She tried to conjure the image of the courtroom, to make herself turn around, to see her father sitting in the back row, but the memory would not come. “I never knew you were there.”
“No, you did not. I wanted to see you. You didn’t want to see me.” He held up his hand to spare her the trouble of making an excuse. “It is a father’s job to love his daughter in the way that she needs to be loved.”
Instead of joking this time, Sam wiped away tears.
He said, “There’s a picture of Gamma in my office that I want you to have.”
Sam was surprised. Rusty had no way of knowing that she had spent part of her day thinking about the photo.
He said, “The picture is one you haven’t seen before. I’m sorry about that. I always thought I would show it to you girls eventually.”
“Charlie hasn’t seen it?”
Rusty shook his head. “She has not.”
Sam felt a strange lightness in her chest that he was telling her something that Charlie did not know about.
“Now.” Rusty took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth. “When this photo was taken, Gamma was standing in a field. There was a weather tower in the distance. Not metal like the one at the farmhouse. It was wooden, an old, rickety thing. And your Gamma was looking at it when Lenny pulled out his camera. She was wearing these shorts.” Rusty grinned. “My God, the time I spent with those legs …” He gave a low, disconcerting grumble. “Now, the picture you know about, that was taken the same day. We had a picnic spread out on the grass. I called her name, and she looked back at me with her eyebrow up, because I had said something devastatingly intelligent.”
Sam smiled despite herself.
“But there’s a second picture. My private photo. Gamma’s facing the camera, but her head is turned slightly to the side because she’s looking at me, and I am looking at her, and when Lenny and I got back home and we got the roll of film back from the Fotomat, I took one look at it, and I said, ‘That’s the moment when we fell in love.’”
Sam loved the story too much for it to be true. “Did Gamma agree with you?”
“My beautiful daughter.” Rusty reached out. He cupped Samantha’s chin in his hand. “I say without any guile that my interpretation of this critical moment was the only time in our lives that your mother and I were in complete agreement.”
Sam blinked back more tears. “I’d like to see it.”
“I will put it in the mail as soon as I am able.” Rusty coughed into his hand. “And I will continue calling you, if you don’t mind.”
Sam nodded. She could not imagine her life in New York without his messages.
Rusty coughed again, a deep sound rattling in his lungs that did not stop him from trying to light his cigarette.
She said, “Y
ou know coughing is a sign of congestive heart failure.”
He coughed some more. “It is also a sign of thirst.”
Sam took the hint. She left her suitcase beside the bench and walked back into the hospital. The gift shop was by the front door. Sam found a bottle of water in the cooler. She waited in line behind an older woman who was intent on paying her bill with all the loose change from the bottom of her purse.
Sam drew in a breath and let it go. She could see Rusty outside. He was leaning on his right elbow again. The lit cigarette was held between his fingers.
The woman in front of Sam was scraping around for pennies. She made small talk with the cashier about her sick friend whom she was visiting upstairs.
Sam glanced around. The drive back to Atlanta would be another two hours. She should probably find something else to eat since she had been too upset to order anything at the diner. She was looking for a Kind Bar when she spotted a display of mugs in the back of the store. MOTHER OF THE YEAR. BEST FRIEND IN THE WORLD. STEPDAD OF THE YEAR. WORLD’S BEST DAD.
Sam picked up the BEST DAD mug. She rolled it in her hand.
She stood on her tiptoes so that she could see Rusty.
He was still leaning in his chair. Smoke curled up around his head. She put the mug back and chose the STEPDAD one because Rusty would think it was funny.
The penny counter was gone from the checkout. Sam found her credit card in her purse. She waited for the chip reader to process the charge.
The cashier said, “Visiting your stepdad?”
Sam nodded, because no normal person would find humor in the explanation.
“I hope he’s better soon.” The cashier ripped off the receipt and handed it to Sam.
She walked back through the lobby. The hospital doors slid open. Rusty was still by the bench. Sam held up the mug. “Look what I got.”
Rusty did not turn to look.
Sam asked, “Dad?”
Rusty wasn’t just leaning in his chair. He was listing to the side. His hand had dropped down. His lit cigarette had fallen to the ground.
Sam stepped closer. She looked into her father’s face.
Rusty’s lips were parted. His eyes stared blankly into the bright lights of the parking lot. His skin looked waxy, almost white.