“Yeah, it’s a big, big tree,” I agreed. “Can you say ‘redwood’?”
She looked me in the eye, only to drop her gaze to my lips and mouth the word.
“Red. Wood,” I repeated slowly.
“We-woo,” she whispered.
I smiled at her and brushed back her hair with my fingers. “You’re my little genius,” I said. “We should get back to the car if we’re gonna make it to the beach in time.”
She nodded as if she understood what I was saying.
This had to be the reward for a rather disastrous week in Oregon. Grace and I had gotten some laughs at our misfortune, but it was too soon to look back on it as a fond memory. Torrential rains, a flat tire, and mud everywhere summed up what should’ve been a fantastic trip to see the famous rock formations in the state.
Instead of catching the sunrise or sunset at some impressive cliff, I’d taken a picture of the two of us with mud streaks on our faces, soaked boots, and wet hair.
Northern California was giving us a different welcome. First the Redwood National Park this morning, now this…
It was the peak of tourist season, yet we’d arrived at one of the glass beaches outside of Fort Bragg when there was no one else around. The sun was about to set, Grace was in a cheerful mood, and we’d brought food from Denny’s for dinner.
The ocean was calm. The cliffs and tide pools around us were stunning.
I fanned out my windbreaker for us to sit on while Grace dropped to her knees and dug around in the sand. The streaked clusters of sea glass glistened in the dipping sun and mesmerized my daughter from the first second.
“Dada, wook!” She held up a blue piece of rounded glass.
“Very pretty.” I bit into my cheesy, greasy, bacon and egg cheeseburger with an indecent groan that made Grace laugh. I held up her yogurt cup and serving of sausage and hash browns. “You wanna come eat, love? It’ll get cold soon.”
“Pewie?” She scrambled over to me and grabbed her backpack.
“I’m not forgetting her. She’ll be with you in your picture,” I assured her. It was time to return the favor to Elise. She’d taken funny pictures in San Francisco with her penguin for Grace. Now Pewie, the convenient name for Grace’s penguin, was going to star in some of the photos I took of her for Elise.
Grace made her way between my legs and sat down on my knee while I opened the container with her food in it.
“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”
She nodded and grinned around a sausage.
I chuckled and gave her cheek a smooch.
After a week and a half of sleeping in motels and inns, it felt nice to be welcomed to San Francisco by Ryan and Angel.
Elise would join us for a late dinner when she got off work. In the meantime, Grace got a much-needed nap, and I unpacked a little in the guest room. In Elise’s room. Where I saw evidence of how much she loved us all over the place. There was a picture of Grace and me on the wall, two photos of Grace on her nightstand, several of my tees and boxers in the drawers, the penguin on the desk, and…what the hell? I walked closer and snatched up the photo next to the penguin.
It was a punch in the gut. Exactly seven pictures had survived my childhood, and this was a copy of one of them. A classmate’s mother had taken it at a birthday party. I didn’t remember who. Finn was standing next to me; I had my arm around him, and I was jokingly forcing him to wear a party hat. He had cake on his cheek, and he wore a scowl and a grin at the same time.
We were eight years old in this photo and had already lived through four years of abuse.
Why had Elise made a copy of it?
Not that I minded, but…
She wanted me to reach out to him again; I knew that much.
Was there something else?
It felt significant that she’d chosen this photo, when there were two others from my childhood that had only me in them.
A quiet knock on the door pushed my questions aside for the moment, and Ryan appeared. He spotted Grace sleeping on the bed first. “Come on. Beer out on the fire escape,” he said quietly.
I nodded.
I’d get my answers from Elise eventually. She wasn’t sneaky by nature, and she wouldn’t go behind my back to do anything—not after what my ex-wife had done.
There was one more thing to do. Before I joined Ryan, I pulled out the bracelet Grace had picked out for Elise at a little jewelry store in Mendocino. It had tiny pieces of seashells and a few pearls dangling from the silver chain. I placed the gift box on the desk, then grabbed the baby monitor and closed the door to the room behind me.