I put my hand over hers and press, and her eyes jerk to mine in surprise. In all the years she's been working for my family, I don't know that I've ever once touched her, but at the moment it feels right.
"Thank you," I say quietly. "For everything."
Oh God. The woman's going to cry, I can see it in the wobbly chin and the way she keeps staring up to first one corner of the kitchen ceiling and then the other.
"Maybe this isn't the right decision," she says, her voice a little watery. "Maybe . . ."
"Nope," I say, leaning back and making my voice friendly even though my words are resolute. "You've earned your retirement, Lindy. You and Mick both have."
And it's true, but I don't miss the timing of it. Almost two weeks to the day after Olivia left me, a disgruntled Lindy and Mick handed in their resignation letters. They said that telling me personally was just a courtesy, since it was actually my father who paid their salaries, and it was my father whom they'd truly resigned to.
But I know the real reason they cornered me in my office that day. It wasn't a formality. It was to make a point.
It was their way of telling me that if I let Olivia go, I let them go too.
In other words, if I want to live alone, I do it all alone.
The kicker is, I can't even see them as traitors. Sure, they stood by my side long before Olivia was even in the picture. And when I ran off all the other caretakers my father threw my way, they stuck by me through that too. On the surface, nothing about this scenario should be different. In theory, we should be able to go back to being the three of us, them staying out of my way and me treating with them with more civility than I show the rest of the world.
That's no longer good enough for them, and I'm glad of it. They've always deserved more than sticking by a surly beast who on my worst days could barely muster up the word thanks.
"We won't be far," Lindy says, recovering her composure. "And you come for Christmas if you want. It's only forty-five minutes, and you'll always be welcome."
"I'll be fine, Lindy. I'm good."
I'm not good. I'm so far from good, there's not even a word for it. But I haven't celebrated Christmas for two years, and I'm not about to start now. I could practically hear my dad's disappointment over the phone when I told him not to come up for the holidays, and Lindy looks equally crushed.
When will they learn not to expect anything from me?
"Mr. Paul-Paul," she corrects herself, realizing she no longer works for my family, and that I'm no longer twelve.
Don't, I silently beg Lindy. But she doesn't pick up on my silent cue. Nobody ever does.
Well, Olivia did. But she's gone. Gone for about a month now, without so much as a text or email. I don't even know where she is.
"Paul," Lindy continues, coming around to where I sit at the counter and standing close, looking like she wants to touch me but refraining, "I know things are . . . bleak right now. It seems like everyone's leaving you. But you understand, don't you?"
Actually, no. I don't understand. I mean, I get why people don't want to be around me. I've always wondered why Lindy and Mick stuck it out, especially when I was at my worst in those early days.
It's like Olivia somehow set an example for the others with her tough-love voodoo.
Kali won't talk to me either.
Not that I think Olivia told the others what happened. She was gone within an hour of telling me goodbye.
But her desertion sent a clear message: If the beast wants to be alone, then let him.
Whatever. I'll be fine. Lindy's right, I do make good eggs. I can brown beef for tacos, or whatever. I can boil water for pasta.
There's always takeout. If my leg's good enough to run, it's certainly good enough to drive.
Not that I've been doing much running. I don't like it anymore. She took even that from me.
Once I loved it for its solitude. And now? Now it just feels fucking lonely.
"You take care of yourself, Lindy," I say, ignoring her questioning gaze.
Then I do what once was unthinkable: I hug her. And I let her hug me back.
She clings a little too long, and maybe I do too. She's the closest I've had to a mother since my own passed away forever ago.
But I can't let myself think like that. An employee retiring is one thing. A pseudo-parent walking out on you? It's crushing. So I don't even go there.
"You need help loading the car?" I ask as I pull back, desperate to change the subject.
"Nah, Mick took care of it all this morning," she says, adjusting her scarf and doing the blinky thing again.
"Where is Mick?"
Lindy fiddles even more deliberately with her scarf, not meeting my gaze.
My eyes narrow. "Lindy."
"Well . . ."
I sigh in understanding. "My father's coming into town, isn't he? Mick went to pick him up from the airport."
"Yes," Lindy says with a sheepish smile. "I think Mick wants to feel needed just one last time."
"Shit," I mutter under my breath.
I haven't seen my father since the last time he came up to give me shit about daring to show my face in Frenchy's. And actually, it's because of that fact that I'm not dreading his arrival as much as I would have just a few months ago.
If anyone will understand why I couldn't meet Olivia's outrageous demand of shopping trips and movie theaters and vacations, it would be him. He didn't even want me to show myself to a bunch of small-town locals in Nowhere, Maine. He'd probably have a heart attack at the thought of me following Olivia to New York, or, worse, attempting to rejoin my old life in Boston.
In the weeks that Olivia's been gone, not a day has gone by where I haven't second-guessed my decision. My nightmares are no longer about the war, but neither are they a clichéd montage of me fumbling around in the public eye while everyone points and laughs at my face.
No, my dreams are about her.
The bad ones are bleak, endless winters of trying to reach her and failing.
But the worst dreams-the ones that kill me-are the good ones. The ones where she's laughing, or running along beside me with her little trot-trot gait, or sprawled out in my bed, taking up every inch of space.
Those are the mornings where I wake up wanting to go to her.
I smile grimly. For the first time in a long time, I feel like my dad can't get here fast enough. I need a good dose of reality before I do something like chase after Olivia's fairy tale of happily-ever-after.
I give Lindy a last peck on the cheek. "If I don't see you before you leave . . . thank you. For being here."
There she goes again, getting all watery. She pats my cheek awkwardly.
I watch her leave the kitchen. The second woman in a month to do just that.
I head into the office. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually watching the clock as I sit at my desk, awaiting my father's arrival. I should have asked Lindy how long ago Mick had left, but that probably would have just made the minutes tick by slower. I should be getting used to it by now. Lately the days have been very long, and not just because it seems like it's dark until noon and then dark again at three.
The days are long because I'm bored. I've racked my brain to remember how I used to fill my time. I've tried to rewind to a few months ago, where days and weeks and months passed in a blur. But even whisky doesn't help anymore.
The endless solitude is slowly stifling me. I'm letting it.
"Paul."
I jerk a little from where I've been slouched over, clicking on random links on my laptop without actually reading anything. I've gotten ridiculously adept at surfing the Web lately. I had no idea there was so much mindless drivel on the Internet just waiting to be absorbed into vacant, bored minds.
"Dad."
He pauses a little in his stride, giving me a puzzled look. Probably because it's the first time that my voice has been welcoming. Hell, it's the first time in many years I've called him Dad without a sarcastic edge.
"Sorry I didn't call first," he says, taking a seat across the desk like this is a business meeting. I intentionally ignore the little twist in my chest. What the hell was I expecting? A hug? After years of never returning his phone calls and going out of my way to show him how little I needed him?
I shrug.
"How are you?" he asks distractedly as he pulls his briefcase onto the desk and begins rooting around in the papers there.
"I'm good," I lie. "Great."
"Mmm-hmm," he says, not looking up. "Oh good, here it is. I know I could have mailed it, but I wanted to see Mick and Lindy off in person, so I figured I may as well stop by."
"Sure," I say, refusing to be stung by the fact that he came all this way for his employees. Not for his son. Not for me. Never for me.
You reap what you sow, and all that.
He hands me a piece of paper, and I open it up, figuring it's going to be some other stipulation or hoop I have to jump through in order to keep living here.
It's far from it.