Experiment in Terror 09 Dust to Dust(77)

Nurse? I wondered what was wrong with him.

While I pondered that, Perry spoke for me. “We’re…interested in his boat.”

Okay, that wasn’t exactly what I would have said but I went with it. It’s not like we came up with coherent plan on the way here.

She nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, goody. That’s wonderful. Stay there and I’ll go get him.”

She disappeared into the house and as soon as she was out of earshot I turned to Perry.

“Interested in his boat?”

Her lip snarled defensively. “Well we couldn’t quite say that you were his long lost son.” She looked around her. “They are in a nice neighborhood, they have money. People always think the worst before they think the best.”

She had a point and soon after, a man appeared at the door in a wheelchair, shadowed by the doorframe. The woman appeared beside him. “You can come up here. The ramp is at the side of the house but if this won’t take long…”

I raised a palm. “That’s fine,” I said, smiling even though some small part of me, maybe my toe, felt bad for the fucker already. I grabbed Perry’s hand and we walked up toward the front door.

And there, in a wheelchair, staring at me with begrudged curiosity, was my father. He didn’t look as happy as the woman had seemed and I assumed that whatever business there was to be done about the boat, well it pleased her more than it did him.

“I’m Curtis,” the man said and his Irish accent still lingered. It brought back a lot of memories. Most of them uncomfortable but some of them, a few of them, good.

Suddenly, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say anything at all. I was standing in front of my father, the man who had abandoned me all those years ago, left me with my mother and a nanny but with no wages to pay a nanny. He fucked off and he ruined everything – or at least he didn’t help. Over the years I had come to realize that everyone was at fault, not just him. Still, even facing him in his wheelchair, all these years later, I couldn’t help but think of him as a coward.

I vowed right there and then to never do that to my child, no matter if he saw ghosts, was as normal as apple pie, or happened to be the anti-Christ. There was love and there was pride and the former should always trump the latter.

“My name is Dex,” I said, and I swear I saw his brow raise for a minute. He reminded me a lot of Gregory Peck, all overgrown black eyebrows and silver-coated hair. “This is Perry, my fiancé,” I said, motioning to her. She smiled sweetly and I knew it warmed him over just a bit. Despite what she thought, she had that effect on people. She counteracted me in the best way.

“Very nice to meet you,” he said with a sharp nod, though his eyes were focused on me. He looked like he was trying to jog his memory, perhaps trying to place my name or my face and was coming up empty. “So you’re interested in buying Green Glass, is that it?”

That must have been the boat’s name. I figured we only had a finite amount of time before we had to come clean.

“Could you answer a few questions about her?” I asked, without saying yes or no.

He nodded and his palms kneaded the armrest of his chair. “Why not?”

“I read in the paper that you won a regatta. Has the boat won anything else besides that?”

He grinned, just for a moment. He had nice teeth. I guess the rich could afford that. Then again, I had nice teeth because of the settlement he left me through my mother, so I shut that thought up.

“That was a good ol’ fluke,” he said. “My buddies and I, we’re always racing off of Nantucket, Martha’s, all the haunts. I decided to go for it, you know, have a laugh or two. I took my buddy on as my skipper since I can’t do much with this damn arthritis and all. Somehow we won. But, if you paid attention to the ad, I never passed the ship off as a racing boat. We were just lucky.”

“Arthritis?” I asked and his face immediately went sharp.

“Yes,” he said defensively. “Plus I had an accident a few years ago. I don’t let that stop me from doing things though.”

“That lady,” Perry said, “is she your wife?”

He nodded. “Aye. Margaret. Been married about…”

While he trailed off I said, “at least fifteen years.”

He frowned but said, “That seems about right.”

“Were you married before her?” Perry asked and now I knew we were getting down to brass taxes.

“How is this relevant to the boat?” he asked, brow raised in such a way that it made Perry flinch. Not because he looked scary, but because he looked a lot like me. We were down to the wire now. Time to come clean before they called the cops.